rich hewitt tour manager

The Untold Truth Of LFO

"New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits," and boy band LFO (short for Lyte Funky Ones) had two off its debut album. The biggest, 1999's "Summer Girls," was a certified platinum smash and is forever ranked as one of the all-time great summer jams thanks to the infectious cheese of its reference-packed lyrics. "And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer, for the summer..." Is it stuck in your head yet? This song is genius. Next came the hit "Girl on TV." Remember that one? Jennifer Love Hewitt does (we'll get into that).

Consisting of singer-songwriter Rich Cronin, Devin Lima, and Brad Fischetti, LFO disbanded in 2002 without reaching the same level of  boy band success as their contemporaries The Backstreet Boys or 'NSYNC . Maybe it's because they only like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch and that alienated potential fan girls who like to wear other things, or maybe it was their disdain for Chinese food. We'll never know. Here's what we do know: Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets, and we're going to give you the untold truth of LFO.

The summer of LFO. Thanks, Britney

2000 was the year of LFO. Coming off the massive success of "Summer Girls," the pop trio joined an 18-year old Britney Spears and traversed arenas all over the United States  on her Oops!... I Did It Again tour. The tour was an overwhelming success, pulling in more than  $40 million and setting LFO up to headline the Nickelodeon All That Music & More Festival.

Hitting 40 cities in three months , LFO, Hoku, B*Witched, and Blaque performed for teen girls everywhere on the Nickelodean tour, but that wasn't exactly Rich Cronin's original vision for the band and its music . "At first, I was like, these kids are going to be too young. I never wanted to be the guy who only had girls come to our shows," he told SFGate . "I want to be like the Beastie Boys. I don't think we fit the stereotype of the boy group." He added, "But whatever it is, we're in it. But I was like, let's do it because it's just going to spread our name out there even more. I don't regret it at all. They were really huge shows."

Jennifer Love Hewitt wasn't a wonderland

Rich Cronin met Jennifer Love Hewitt  backstage at the 1999 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, and the pair started dating soon after. With the I Know What You Did Last Summer star making a came in the band's video for " Girl on TV " (Cronin's ode to Hewitt), the relationship appeared to be going strong, but this love affair ended two years later.

In a 2009 interview with Howard Stern , Cronin accused Hewitt of cheating on him with actor Patrick Wilson . "Things got a little rough at the end. It went from 'I love you' every day to, literally, within a week, 'I hate you, don't ever call me again,'" Cronin told SFGate in 2001. "The last time I talked to her, she said, 'I've got to go. You've hurt me too much. I don't want you to make me upset again. Click.' That was it. I left her a bunch of messages and never heard from her again ."

Their manager was a 'really a creepy guy'

Known as " the boy band mogul ," Lou Pearlman was a record producer who discovered such legendary boy bands as The Backstreet Boys and 'NSYNC. He then created LFO in an attempt to replicate that success, but according to Rich Cronin's interview with Howard Stern , chart success and helping young men achieve their dreams wasn't Pearlman's motivation. "He wanted to bang everyone. He wanted to bang everyone there ... he's disgusting," Cronin alleged. "He needed you to sing a little bit, but really he just wanted you to be good-looking."

Cronin recalled his audition process with Pearlman: "He goes, 'You could be a star ... take off your shirt' ... then he's like, 'Turn around.'"  Stern asked Cronin if Pearlman attempted to molest him. "Eventually he did ... some other dudes went for it. And if you did, he took care of you. He'd buy 'em cars," Cronin claimed. "I've had to go to therapy ... he's really a creepy guy."

Cronin also said Pearlman sold the publishing rights to the band's songs and despite moving "4 or 5 million records," the members of LFO never became rich. "I should've made, like, at least 2 or 3 million dollars," Cronin said.

Brad Fischetti pickets abortion clinics

Brad Fischetti made headlines in 2012 when Buzzfeed discovered the former boy bander is a staunch pro-life activist who pickets abortion clinics. In a series of now-deleted tweets  posted outside an Orlando clinic, Fischetti reportedly identified doctors by name and posted pictures of patients entering and exiting the building. "The abortionist just arrived. Look him up on your phone," one tweet read. Another said, "Bad news. Clinic open & slammed. Nurse told [fellow protester] John Barros 'We can't let them '2nds' (trimester) get away. 2 much $ n them. Please pray."

When reached for comment by E! News , Fischetti called abortion "disgusting" and said he regretted not being more vocal during the height of his fame. "Most times I just pray," he said. "And when I do speak, it's only God's Word and/or letting the girls and guys know that there are other options. That we are here if they need help or to talk or to pray. That we have people ready and waiting and willing to help." He added, "I don't yell. I don't judge. I just offer help if they want it and pray. Pray constantly."

Cancer has taken the lives of two members

Out of the three members of LFO, cancer has claimed the lives of two. On Sept. 8, 2010, singer and songwriter Rich Cronin passed away after suffering a stroke due to complications from acute myelogenous leukemia. He was 35. " Sad sad day that Rich Cronin   died – was a [ sic ] amazing guy," 'NSYNC's Lance Bass tweeted at the time.

Less than a decade later, Devin Lima was diagnosed with stage IV adrenal cancer  and underwent surgery to remove a " massive adrenal tumor " in October 2017. He succumbed to the disease and died Nov. 21, 2018 . He was 41. "My son has passed away," his mother, Filomena Lima, told Us Weekly . "His fiancée was living with him and let us know that he passed at 2:45 in the morning. He was struggling for 13 months since his cancer diagnosis. The family is not good."

Rich Cronin created a foundation to help others

After his acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) diagnosis in 2005, Rich Cronin created The Rich Cronin Hope for Leukemia Foundation "to help promote awareness about the importance of volunteer bone marrow registry." According to the website, the foundation has "facilitated over 2500 registrations to the Be the Match registry and continues to be a major presence in the cancer care community through its Marrow for Life, Hope Strides, and Hope Sings initiatives."

Under the " Get Involved " section on the site, visitors are urged to get swabbed and join the registry as well as learn how to host a bone marrow drive. "The Foundation is dedicated to the care, compassion and life enrichment of individuals and families impacted by leukemia," the site says . "The crux of its mission is to promote awareness about the disease and the simple ways healthy individuals can potentially save a life." The parting message reads, "May Rich's life be an inspiration to others in their personal battle with AML."

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission

LFO Forever

As the surviving member of the boy band, brad fischetti keeps their legacies alive..

Twentyish years ago, in a mall on Long Island, Brad Fischetti was riding down an escalator with his LFO bandmates Rich Cronin and Devin Lima. Fresh from the release of their single “ Summer Girls ,” they were at the mall to do an autograph signing but were unsure if fans would turn out. “I remember, we were really worried, like, ‘Is anybody going to show up?’ You know, it’s embarrassing when you do an autograph signing and there’s nobody there,” Fischetti says, speaking to me over a series of phone and Zoom calls from his home in Florida. Now 45, he still looks remarkably like his younger self.

Halfway down the escalator, the group finally passed the wall that obscured their view of the floor below, revealing a massive crowd of screaming fans. “They see us and they start going ballistic. And you’re going in slow motion down this escalator, you know what I mean? It was a very emotional moment.”

The day marked a turning point for the band, and that summer their single was everywhere. It was a hit on radio stations and pop charts, and the accompanying music video could be found playing on MTV. The band had officially made it big in the boy-band era of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Their journey to the top was far from easy. Their manager, the infamous boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman — who also managed and developed the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, among other groups — put LFO through their paces. Like Pearlman’s other pop star creations, Cronin, Lima and Fischetti were plucked from relative obscurity while working in Pearlman’s vicinity (Brian Gillis, an earlier member, left the group before their rise to fame) and began following a grueling schedule of singing and rehearsing choreography. ”It wasn’t really us, you know, the synchronized dancing and the three-part harmonies,” Fischetti told me. “But we did some of that early on because that’s what you’re expected to do.”

Unlike others in the boy-band universe, LFO’s style was laidback; less hard-driving pop and more hip-hop accented, including Cronin’s cooing rap verses, delivered with his signature hunky squint, and Lima’s soulful vocals. (If NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were Pepsi and Coke, LFO was Dr. Pepper — a little less ubiquitous but just as sweet.) LFO even wrote some of their own music, with Cronin penning several of their hit tracks, including “Summer Girls” and “ Girl on TV ,” his ode to actress and then-girlfriend Jennifer Love Hewitt. “Summer Girls” became a massive hit and the band’s self-titled debut album went on to sell 2.5 million copies, fueled by U.S, tour dates with Britney Spears, along with TV performances, and two Billboard Top 10 Hits.

But the boy-band bubble didn’t last forever, and by 2002 LFO announced that they were going on hiatus. I asked Fischetti if he thought back fondly on his time in the limelight. “When I think of the fans and the support, I think of nothing but joy and love and happiness, and gratitude,” he says. “The LFO journey itself was hard. And we have a lot of stuff , for lack of a better term. And then clearly, the overall story is a tragedy, right?”

Today, Fischetti is the last surviving member of the group and the self-appointed keeper of LFO’s legacy, a role he takes extremely seriously. “There were people early on who were trying to tell me I should replace them,” says Fischetti. “I don’t want to start something new. I’m not interested in that. I’m really happy to nurture the legacy and continue to remind people how special they were.”

Rich was the first one to get sick. In 2005, just three years after the band went on hiatus, Fischetti got phone call from Mike Cronin, Rich’s brother, telling him that Rich had been diagnosed with leukemia. “I remember I just sort of fell into a crouching position with my head in my hands, and I just wept,” says Fischetti. After chemotherapy and a stem-cell transplant, Cronin felt well enough to continue making music and doing TV engagements. He joined the rest of the band on a 2009 reunion tour, financed by Fischetti, who by then was running his own record label, One Eleven Records. “To be honest, I lost a lot of money on that tour, but I don’t regret it. Because we became so close, you know, and it was one of Rich’s last opportunities to tour.”

Cronin spent much of the time fatigued, resting in the back of the tour bus between gigs. Gradually, his condition worsened, his mobility became more limited, and in the fall of 2010, Cronin died as a result of his illness.

After his bandmate’s death, Fischetti went back to his record label. Lima and Fischetti remained close, with Lima living in Fischetti’s garage, on and off, helping out with Fischetti’s kids and singing in the band at his church. In 2017, Fischetti and Lima decided to go on tour as a way of honoring Cronin’s legacy and planned an ambitious set of dates that would begin in the South and take them up the East Coast. Fischetti had already begun planning the tour’s second leg when Lima became ill. Lima was diagnosed with advanced adrenal cancer and had surgery to remove a massive tumor enveloping one of his kidneys. The surgery was successful, but in 2018, just 13 months after he was diagnosed, Lima passed away at the age of 41.

Lima’s passing devastated Fischetti, and he struggled with his mental health. With the help of a doctor and counselor, Fischetti says he was ”able to get through it,” but even as we spoke, it was clear the losses he experienced continued to haunt him. When he describes Lima and Cronin’s final days, his tone becomes somber and the pain in his voice is palpable. “Maybe it’s not as stigmatized as it used to be, but I do encourage anybody who’s in the darkness to seek help to find the light,“ he says.

Since his friends’ deaths, Fischetti has made it his goal to safeguard Cronin and Lima’s memory. “It’s what I call an ‘unfortunate honor.’” he says. “You know, I do work at a church, and I do a lot of different things there, but one thing I do is plan all the music for funerals. And so when people are so appreciative of my work, I tell them, ‘It’s an unfortunate honor. I wish I didn’t have to help you bury your husband or your child or your friend, but I take it very seriously.’“

Two years ago, Fischetti performed on the Pop 2000 tour alongside other Y2K-era bands. This was his first time performing on stage without his former bandmates. It was emotional, Fischetti told me, but he had the support of other people around him, performing a 12-minute-long LFO medley with the members of O-Town, another Lou Pearlman-created boy band who knew Cronin and Lima well.

Then in April of this year, Fischetti put on a livestream event titled The LFO Story. It was a musical performance that traced the band’s history from the birth of each member through to the present day, a way to tell the story of the band and preserve the memory of Lima and Cronin. The event didn’t go as well as Fischetti had hoped.Technical difficulties forced him to rush through his usual pre-show preparations, and he performed as if “on autopilot”. Though he was joined by other vocalists, including a guest appearance by Ryan Cabrera, the audience was limited to a few friends and family members, not the crowds of fans he had been used to at other shows. The performance was a rollercoaster of emotions, with Fischetti taking the viewers through the band’s rise to fame and the death of Cronin and Lima, culminating in a performance of a Christian power ballad and transitioning to a rendition of “Summer Girls,” with Fischetti singing each verse.

“I left the stage feeling an overwhelming sense of regret. I regretted doing the show, I regretted wasting everybody’s time, and I wished that I never even thought of it. I went into this deep, dark hole probably darker than I can ever remember besides losing the guys,“ says Fischetti. Relief came a few days later, when he was able to see the video edits from the event and step outside his experience to see the performance from the point of view of the camera. But the days he spent depressed in the aftermath of a performance that might otherwise have been cathartic left him searching for answers. “I don’t know where it came from — maybe my own insecurities, maybe it was my own grief, maybe it was evil trying to mess with me. Because anybody who is a believer … I do believe that the more you try to do good, the more evil will try to find ways to get at you for your own insecurities.”

These days, Fischetti is kept busy by his family of five children, his record label, and his work as the musical director of Corpus Christi Catholic Church. Faith, he says, has helped him weather the grieving periods of the past few years. ”I think it was a big reason why I was able to get through the craziness. Because if you believe in eternal life, then you can imagine this great reunion when Devin met Rich again. And that puts a big smile on my face” he says. “When I’m doing stuff these days, I don’t know exactly how it works, but it feels like they’re turning some knobs and switching some gears to help make things happen here, you know?”

Part of safeguarding the memory of Cronin and Lima means defending their artistic legacies, and Fischetti is effusive, almost hyperbolic, with his praise. Cronin was, according to Fischetti, not just talented but “one of the best rappers who ever lived” and Lima was not just vocally gifted but actually in possession of “the voice of a generation.”

Fischetti may be biased, but it’s true that there is something misunderstood and perhaps even underappreciated when it comes to former pop music performers. Widely dismissed by critics during their time, with the genre as a whole associated with the tastes of teen girls and a kind of manufactured or inauthentic form of musicianship, today we’re reconsidering our treatment of once-maligned celebrity figures (see: Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson ). Whether the shift is a result of newfound sensitivity about issues like misogyny, or a kind of Y2K nostalgia, or, as Fischetti suggests, a changing of the guard when it comes to media gatekeepers, it’s clear that a realignment of the pop era’s heroes and villains is taking place.

Despite the ( sometimes gratuitous ) flack Cronin received for the quirky amalgamation of non-sequiturs he used in the lyrics to “Summer Girls,” he went on to write and produce music for other acts, including O-Town and Aaron Carter. In 2009, Cronin told Howard Stern in an interview that had Pearlman not sold the publishing rights to his work out from under him, he might have made millions off his writing on LFO’s first record. In the same interview , Cronin also discussed Pearlman’s history of sexually inappropriate behaviour toward him and was among the first to do so publicly. Fischetti has been reluctant to address any of these claims and when I asked him about Lou, Fischetti made it clear that he didn’t want to speak about his former manager.

Despite the setbacks he experienced in his career, and throughout his long struggle with leukemia, Cronin did whatever possible to make it back to the spotlight. (“Nowadays life is way more tough, I did all I could do but it wasn’t enough,” Cronin raps in a track from the 2008 solo album he released before his death.) In 2007, he appeared on VH1’s Mission: Man Band , alongside other former boy band members hoping to form a new group and sign with a major record label. The end result, a band called “Sureshot,” didn’t work out as Cronin might have hoped, but his time on camera did provide an opportunity to reveal his sense of humor and personality to a broader audience. One particularly memorable scatalogical story involving a roll of cinnamon-flavoured dental floss had the whole van full of former boy-band members, including NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick and 98 Degrees’s Jeff Timmons, cracking up with laughter.

Lima, according to Fischetti’s description, was by contrast more introspective and deep. When Fischetti first encountered him at the hospital after his cancer diagnosis, Lima wasn’t convalescing in bed as one might expect, but sitting up on the couch and meditating, his room already decorated with trinkets he brought from home. Fischetti describes going on walks with Lima through the wooded trails near his home. Lima wouldn’t just observe what was nearby, but instead stared deeply, as far as possible into the woods. “So I try to do the same thing, I try to see things a little deeper and feel that experience of awe sometimes. You honor them by trying to live like them,” says Fischetti. In the last days of Lima’s life, Fischetti would alternate between rubbing his back and reading to him from science fiction books. The next chapter in the collection of Ray Bradbury stories they were reading was called “The Exiles,” a title very similar to a side project the two of them had planned on launching that year, a hip-hop Christmas album they put out under the name “Xiles”. But before they could read the story together, Lima passed away.

The story of that chapter, as it turns out, centers around the idea of preserving artistic legacies. Set in the year 2120, a rocket ship filled with the last remaining copies of the banned books of great authors — including William Shakesepeare and Edgar Allen Poe — is on it’s way to Mars. Awaiting them are the reanimated spirits of those same authors, who plan to ambush the rocket once it lands. The authors fear that if the last copies of their books are destroyed, they themselves will cease to exist — “Death! Real death for all of us,” says one character. But when the rocket arrives on Mars the literary heroes are nowhere to be found and the rocket men find the planet empty. If, as in this story, death isn’t real if artistic legacy is preserved, then Fischetti is ensuring that his friends will live on for a little bit longer.

The Cut Shop

Most viewed stories.

• The Real Reason Taylor Swift Dresses Like That
• Every Easter Egg on Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department
• Reporter Apologizes for Being Creepy to Caitlin Clark
• Celebrities Rush to Defend Lauren Sánchez’s Honor
• What It’s Like to Plan Vacations for Billionaires
• ‘My Boyfriend Still Shares a Bed With His Ex!’

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

• Associated Press ,

• Bruce Martin ,

Trending Teams

Tour returns to history-rich texas.

• Brian Hewitt ,
• Brian Hewitt

The Valero Texas Open is has left its bootprints in golf history dating all the way back to 1942 when Chick Harbert beat Ben Hogan in a playoff at Willow Springs Golf Club in San Antonio. It was the first of many memorable Texas Opens in a state where the golf lore is richer than the Hunt Brothers. In the second Texas Open Byron Nelson, a Texan just like Hogan, also finished runner-up’this time to Johnny Revolta. Nelson ran second the following year to Sam Byrd and never did capture his states open. Hogan beat Byrd by six shots in 1946 and then it was Sam Sneads turn in 1948 and 1950. Jack Burke Jr., yet another Texas golf legend, triumphed in 1952. Soon enough a charismatic Pennsylvanian named Arnold Palmer was winning three straight from 1960 through 1962. And here was Ben Crenshaw, fresh out of the University of Texas, capturing the 1973 event. Don January came first two years later. Lee Trevino got his first Texas Open in 1980. The Texas tradition continued in 2000 and 2001 when Dallas Justin Leonard won on the Resort Course at LaCantera in San Antonio. This years renewal remains at LaCantera and will take place the first week of October as the third event of the PGA TOURs Fall Series. One player to watch in this years field will be, of all things, a Wisconsin native. His name is Mark Wilson and he finished third at LaCantera two years ago. Earlier this year he broke through for his first PGA TOUR win at the Honda Classic. One of his incentives is finishing the season in the top 30 on the money list. Earlier this year The Masters announced it would invite winners of 2007 TOUR events to the 2008 Masters. But that announcement was not retroactive to Wilsons victory at Honda. I had to read the fine print on that one, Wilson said. Since then Wilsons wife, Amy, gave birth to the couples first child, Lane Joseph Wilson. So he has more to play for now. Plus, Wilson said, a lot of the equipment companies base their incentives on finishing in the top 30 on the money list. Through the Turning Stone Resort Championship Sept. 23, Wilson stood at No. 48. Tommy Armour III, the 2003 champion of the Valero Texas Open, ranks No. 98 through the same period. Eric Axley, the 2006 Valero Texas Open winner and the first to take this event in his first appearance since Ron Streak Streck in 1978, was poking along at No. 145 on the money list. Axley is exempt from Q School worries through 2008 thanks to last year at LaCantera. But there will be plenty of tournaments within the tournament as players jockey for spots inside the top 125 as the Fall Series careens towards its early October conclusion. Armours 2003 win was one of the finest 72-hole putting displays in recent PGA TOUR history. And his 72-hole total of 254 still stands as a PGA TOUR record. The Resort course at LaCantera plays to a par of 70. Related Links:

• Full Coverage - Valero Texas Open

Union Kitchen

Rich Hewitt

General Manager at Union Kitchen

Show contact

Rich Hewitt has worked in a variety of roles since 1999. Rich began their career as a Financial Analyst for MCI, followed by a Manager, Revenue Reporting position at Teleglobe. In 2003, they held two positions simultaneously as a Finance Unit Manager for Allstate and a Senior Analyst, Corporate Revenue Planning and Analysis for XO Communications. From 2007 to 2009, they were a Manager, Financial Reporting at Discovery Communications, where they developed, maintained, produced, verified, and distributed financial reports. During this time, they also assisted in the transition of Affiliate Finance during Discovery's initial public offering and actively participated in the planning, testing, and implementation of Discovery's MicroStrategy Business Intelligence reporting system. From 2009 to 2011, they were a Real Estate Agent for Long and Foster, REALTORS. From 2011 to 2019, they were a Marathon Coach for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and AIDS United (formerly AIDS Action Council). In 2018, they began working as an Assistant Manager for Trader Joe's, and in 2019 they became a General Manager for Union Kitchen.

Rich Hewitt received their MBA from George Mason University - School of Business in 2002, and their BS in Business Administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1990, with a focus in Finance.

Previous companies

Cullen Gilchrist

CEO and Founder

General Manager

Bailey Weaver

Pablo Bravo Olle, MPS

Director Membership

Pimnuch Panma

Assistant General Manager and Senior Buyer

September, 2019 - present

View in org chart

For the latest storm information and safety alerts, visit   FloridaDisaster.org . For real-time traffic information throughout the state, visit  FL511.com .

CTQP - Technical Review Teams (TRT)

The Heartbreaking Tragedy Surrounding Pop Group LFO

Three out of four members of lfo, the group behind the 1999 hit "summer girls," have died young..

When LFO  stopped by in the summer of 1999, they dropped an extremely catchy hit.

"Summer Girls," with its ode to brand-name treats past and present and generation-spanning pop culture references—Has any tune since successfully comingled New Kids on the Block  with Mr. Limpet, ruby slippers,  Macaulay Culkin  and  Paul Revere ?—went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and announced the arrival of another "boy band" to watch.

Abercrombie & Fitch-wearing girls everywhere took a shine to Rich Cronin , who was 24 when the song hit, Devin Lima , then 22, and Brad Fischetti , 23. "Summer Girls' wasn't the group's first-ever single (1997's non-charting "Sex U Up" may have hit too close to Color Me Badd 's "I Wanna Sex You Up"—and what a time it was , kids), but it was the lead offering from their self-titled 1999 debut album.

By the time LFO (for Lyte Funky Ones) became a radio staple, Lima had replaced founding member Brian "Brizz" Gillis —which is why so many headlines heralded Fischetti as the group's sole surviving member years before Gillis died March 29 at the age of 47 .

Now, Fischetti officially has that distinction.

"Every story is made up of chapters," the now 47-year-old musician, who started LFO with Cronin and Gillis in 1995, wrote on Instagram a day after Gillis' passing. "Some develop naturally. Some you have to cut up in your mind. The first two chapters of the LFO story lost a main character yesterday."

Admittedly "struggling" with the news, he wrote, "I've said it before and I will continue to say it; the LFO Story is a tragedy. If you know what I've been doing, you know I'm trying to bring light into the darkness. Trying find redemption in pain and suffering. Trying to honor the legacy."

Before sadness overtook the LFO story, their trajectory may not have been up there with the meteoric rise of Backstreet Boys  and NSYNC —but at least theirs was a fairly common tale of a short-lived group having a few big songs and engendering enough popularity to keep chugging along in hearts and minds.

Much like those other groups, though, LFO was also initially under the thumb of notorious manager Lou Pearlman , who sold Cronin's publishing rights out from under him because—as Cronin admitted in later interviews—he didn't realize he was signing them away when the group inked their contract with the Florida-based impresario. Cronin, who wrote "Summer Girls" and "Girl on TV" (inspired by then-girlfriend Jennifer Love Hewitt ) never pursued legal action.

Pearlman, who  did end up in a legal battle with NSYNC that was settled for an undisclosed amount, died in prison in 2016 while serving a 25-year sentence for money laundering and other financial crimes.

"I had to go through lots of therapy," Cronin said on  The Howard Stern Show  in 2009 about his dealings with their former manager. "I went crazy. I mean, I wrote some big songs."

"The guy was awful," he continued. "But besides all this money stuff, he was really a creepy guy."

Trending Stories

Kourtney kardashian responds to claim kim was shading her bikini pic, idaho murder case: bryan kohberger gives new details about his alibi, prince william shares promise to kate middleton amid cancer diagnosis.

Fischetti recalled to The Cut  in 2021 that "the synchronized dancing and the three-part harmonies" so characteristic of Pearlman's creations wasn't really their bag, "but we did some of that early on because that's what you're expected to do."

Gillis had already left the group in 1998. Cronin, Fischetti and Lima followed their 1999 debut with sophomore effort  Life Is Good in 2001—but, also like NSYNC, LFO went on hiatus in 2002 and its members pursued other projects.

"We didn't really end on good terms, to be honest," Fischetti told WaldenPonders in 209. "When we walked out of that room in 2002, it was like a weight was lifted off of our shoulders."

"When you live and work so closely with people, you're bound to develop boundaries and barriers," he explained, "and if you don't break 'em down, if you don't work on 'em, they just continue to grow. Before you know it, the only time you're actually corresponding with each other is for the 45 minutes you're on stage, and that's pretty much where it got to."

But Fischetti and Lima were quick to check in with their former bandmate when Cronin was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in 2005.

"I'm praying every second that this will come out of me," he told MTV News that April as he was undergoing his first round of chemotherapy. Then 29, Cronin shared that he started noticing in late February that he was feeling tired "when I would walk up stairs, and I would start getting pretty sharp headaches. But I never thought much of it, because I had always been a pretty healthy guy."

One doctor had tested him for hepatitis A and, when that was negative, said he probably just had a virus, Cronin continued. But then another physician had him tested for mononucleosis and detected quickly that something wasn't right.

"The doctor told me, 'You have one-third of the blood [you need] in your body, and it's putting an extreme strain on your heart," the singer recalled. "'I need you to get to the emergency room right now and I'll explain everything to you when you get here.'"

When his doctor told him he had leukemia, Cronin said, "it was like a train had barreled through the room."

On a good note, he shared, he had received a flood of support from Lima, Fischetti and other artists from the pop music world—and Cronin credited Fischetti with helping him sort out issues with his health insurance.

"In two weeks, this has completely changed my life and my perspective on it," Cronin said. "The first thing you want to do once you hear the news is run, but you can't, because it's inside of you. You have no choice but to face it."

He had been working on a solo album, he added, and planned to donate the proceeds to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society . "It is a nightmare of a situation to be in," he said, "but I really want to make something positive out of this."

Cronin was said to be in remission in January 2006, but the cancer came back and he underwent a stem cell transplant that July, after which he spent months regaining his strength.

The following year, however, he teamed with  98 Degrees ' Jeff Timmons , NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick  and Bryan Abrams of Color Me Badd for VH1's  Mission: Man Band , which chronicled their ultimately unfruitful efforts to make a major super-group comeback.

"I told my doctors, 'I have to do it,' and they weren't too pleased," Cronin told MTV News  in March 2007. "But I don't care, man. I just want to live my life. I'm just trying to enjoy every opportunity that comes to me, because for the last two years I have been cooped up in hospital rooms with doctors sticking me with needles and giving me bad news. For something like this to come around, it's like it's not going to come again. That's why I don't really care if people are making fun of me. I'm having a blast."

He also eventually finished his solo album, 2008's  Billion Dollar Sound  a recognizably Croninesque effort full of cheeky shout-outs (song titles included "Holiday Inn" and "Tara Reid") and nostalgia-laced personal storytelling.

And in 2009, against all odds, LFO decided to get the band back together.

"I certainly never thought it would happen," Fischetti, who started the label 111 Records in his post-LFO days, told WaldenPonders. "I think I got to a point where I spent so many hours trying to break these baby bands and then at some point I sat down and thought, 'Wow, I've got a name already built.' We spent a lot of time building that name, and it just seemed like a complete waste for us to let it go."

During their years apart, he explained, "We've all grown a lot as people and artists…and I think that the opportunity is here now for us to actually be stronger than we ever were, not only as a group, but as friends. I didn't think there would be much more to it than just a couple reunion tours, a few new songs, then everybody moves on. After spending time rehearsing, it seems like this is actually the start of something new."

A new album was certainly a possibility, Fischetti said. But mainly, he noted, "I'd like to go out there and play shows, and I'd like people to come out and see us play."

Asked what concertgoers could expect from LFO, he predicted, "There will certainly be a lot of energy. That's pretty much what we try for, to really make people happy for a short period of time."

But the reunion was short-lived: Fischetti and Lima announced in a September 2009 video that they were embarking on a project together and the trio had once again disbanded.

"LFO as you knew it—know it—is over," Fischetti said as Lima strummed his guitar in the background. "I wouldn't really even call it a hiatus at this point. I just think it's over. It's hard to really describe how that makes us feel...It certainly can be emotional, but at the same time, I guess that's just the way it needed to be."

And they never had a chance to reconsider.

Cronin's health continued to decline and on Sept. 8, 2010, he died at a Boston-area hospital after suffering a stroke. He was 36.

"Rich was an incredible fighter, and every opportunity when his health was in good condition, he was living his life to the fullest, especially in music," his manager Melissa Holland told the Associated Press . "He just always seemed to bounce back, and this time, it got the best of him."

Fischetti said that he'd last texted with Cronin about 10 days before he died, and his ailing friend was relaying stories about fans approaching him and asking about "Summer Girls."

"He said, 'Listen man, people still care about us,'" Fischetti recalled.

He and Lima pressed pause on future music and respectively carried on with their lives, though they remained close. But they reunited as LFO in 2017 with the release of the summer-ready single "Perfect 10" and plans to tour.

"We miss the presence of our late, great, brother bandmate Rich Cronin," Fischetti told EW.com . "We will do our best to make him proud, carry on his legacy, and to usher LFO into the future."

Their hopeful endeavor was cut short, however, when Lima was diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal cancer in October 2017 and had to have a kidney removed .

"It's devastating news," Fischetti said in a YouTube video, "but at the same time, there's nobody I know stronger than Devin Lima. No one has a stronger body, mind, or soul, and if anybody can defeat this, it's Devin." He noted that the disease his buddy had was "really rare," a "one-in-a-million cancer."

Lima died Nov. 21, 2018 , at the age of 41.

"Devin, as the world knows him, was an extraordinary talent, a doting father to his six children, and a loving partner to their mother," Fischetti said in a statement. "He was a beloved son and brother and a friend to so many."

He also revealed that, a few days before Lima died, "he said to me, 'Bro, when it's over, just tell them I disappeared.' My friends—Harold ''Devin' Lima has disappeared."

The following year, Fischetti hit the road with O-Town , performing LFO's hits to—as he always puts it on social media—"#honorrich" and "#honordevin"—and continues to perform with fellow boy band alums.

"It's what I call an 'unfortunate honor,'" Fischetti told The Cut about being the one left to carry on in LFO's wake.

The father of five and church music director credited his faith for helping him through "the craziness," explaining that "if you believe in eternal life, then you can imagine this great reunion when Devin met Rich again. And that puts a big smile on my face."

Fischetti regularly invokes his late friends, including when his mom,  Susie , died last August. Calling her his "biggest fan, long before I was blessed with actual fans," he concluded his tribute to her with the sentiment, "My heart breaks but I smile just a little bit, imagining her being greeted by Devin and Rich."

On what would have been Lima's 46th birthday on March 18, Fischetti wrote that his youngest daughter had just been baptized at the Texas church that had been the site of numerous milestones for both of their families, as well as where they "said goodbye" to Lima.

"Something weird though has been happening," Fischetti continued. "I still remember you. I don't even need pictures or videos to recall your smile, your voice, your hugs. But somehow, it's starting to feel like you never really did exist. That my memories of you are just dreams. Almost as if I conjured you, my best friend, my bandmate, my homeboy."

Thanking Lima for being his best friend, Fischetti concluded, "I know you and Rich are celebrating big and making some sweet sounds on the night-shift."

Eleven days later, Gillis died. No cause of death was given.

Fischetti once again took to Instagram to pay tribute to a fallen brother, noting that "if it wasn't for his hard work and dedication in the early days of LFO, the first two chapters, the LFO you came to know and (hopefully) love would not exist."

"My relationship with Brian was complex," he continued. "It contained moments of great tribulation but also of great joy. I learned a lot from him about the business of music and how to put together and rock a show. And it's those positive aspects of our relationship that I will lean on now and forever...I know that soon or maybe already, Brizz will be greeted by Rich and Devin. And I hope that together, they will make some sweet sounds. I would really like that."

Cheryl Burke Shares How Money Put Strain on Matthew Lawrence Marriage

Tyler cameron slams golden bachelor for putting a stain on love.

Chris Salvo

Chris is the Operations Manager for the Electrified Garage. His responsibilities include scheduling work for the garage, service advising, handling parts and accessory inventory, working with outside vendor relationships, and business development.

Chris was a technician under Chad Hrencecin at BMW of Peabody. He left to take care of his sick father and began a career with BMW Performance Parts at Turner Motorsport. He eventually went back to be a technician and started at Tesla in Watertown.

After about 8 months, he finally convinced Chad to come work at Tesla as well.  Chris transitioned over to managing the parts department. He is the one who famously told Rich Benoit, “Sorry, I can’t sell you a battery for your car.”

Chris combined his previous experience with BMW Performance Parts with his new knowledge of Tesla vehicles to start EV Tuning. Chris soon left Tesla to continue with EV Tuning full time. He ran into Rich at an EV event and apologized for not selling him parts at Tesla. They both talked about their new business ventures and how it made sense to partner up. The product of those talks is what we now know as The Electrified Garage.

Rich Benoit

Rich Benoit is well-known for his popular YouTube car vlogs. His channel, Rich Rebuilds , was co-founded by himself and Carl Hewitt, and has over a million subscribers and hundreds of millions of views. Rich joined forces with Chris in 2019 to found The Electrified Garage, which started out as just a small shop in New Hampshire, but has quickly expanded to multiple locations.

Chad Hrencecin

Chad is the Service Manager for the Electrified Garage.  His skills include custom metal fabrication, low voltage and high voltage electronics, battery design, suspension, brakes, and powertrain/drivetrain repairs.

He started working in the automotive industry as a technician for Toyota. He then moved on to work for BMW of Peabody where he eventually became shop foreman. After 13 years at BMW, he decided to make the move to Tesla.

For the next 6 years, Chad went from Technician to acting shop foreman to Mobile Service Technician. He was factory trained on the original Roadster, Model S, Model X, and Model 3. In Chad’s spare time he tinkers with everything from rock crawling Jeeps and Suzuki samurais to remote control cars and flying drones.

Chad met Chris during his time at BMW and met Rich during this same time because they were in a mutual friend’s wedding. When Chad was working at Tesla, he brought a loaner car over to Rich one night and gave him a ride in it. This was the initial inspiration for Rich to search for a Salvage Tesla to rebuild.

OUR SERVICES

1829 NW 10th St, Ocala, FL, 34475

Office Hours

Mon - Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Sat - Sun: Closed

72 Elm Street Amesbury MA 01913

LET US HELP YOU

Visit the electrified garage.

Our experience, skill, and inviting nature will make us the only electric car shop you ever turn to.

Our Locations

At The Electrified Garage, we have over two decades of combined experience in the electric car industry. We’re your premier destination for maintenance, repairs, and customization. We treat each customer as individuals, ensuring you’re satisfied with the custom service we provide.

Accessibility

Privacy Policy

What is a Tour Manager and what do they do?

As long as artists continue recording and releasing their music, there will always be live music performance and touring - locally, domestically, and internationally.

And with touring comes the need for one of the most important jobs in the live music industry - tour management.

This article will help you clarify who a tour manager is and what they do on a daily basis.

What is a Tour Manager?

Our definition of a tour manager is:

A non gender specific person who travels city to city with an artist, author, speaker, crew, or other VIP to manage their travel, income, expenses, touring personnel, media interactions, and to help facilitate anything else necessary to execute each show or event. (For the sake of this article, we’ll assume the tour manager is working with a musical artist to execute a live show)

At the most basic level, a tour manager is simply the person who handles or oversees almost every aspect of the lives and routines of musicians and bands while they are on tour. In other words, a tour manager ‘runs the show’ while the band is on the road.

Tour managers travel with the artist to ensure that the tour operates smoothly and punctually without unnecessary hiccups and problems. Tour managers typically work as independent contractors offering their services to different artists each year, but some have been known to stick with only one artist for the entirety of their career.

What are the Specific Jobs of a Tour Manager?

The tour manager handles both administrative and organizational duties, and to make sure everyone is satisfied, may even take care of the personal issues of other crew members or artists on tour.

The job of a tour manager can involve event coordination, accounting, travel and logistics coordination, operations, merchandise sales and ticketing settlement, human resources, and sometimes tour managers can even take on the role of a personal assistant. To be a good tour manager, one needs to be detail oriented, but also able to see the full vision of what the artist is trying to create.

Because a lot of the characteristics of tour manager transfer over to artist management, there are cases where the tour manager also doubles as the band manager. Often on smaller tours, the tour manager may be acting in a double role as not only a tour manager, but also a sound engineer, a driver, a merchandise manager, or other crew position.

Some specific responsibilities of a tour manager may include:

Creating a tour budget

Advancing and preparing all the details for each show

Securing and managing of all income and expenses during the tour

Overseeing other production elements like lighting, sound, publicity, and even selling of merchandise during the tour

Booking and coordinating all ground transportation, flights, hotels

Overseeing or directly handling the transportation of all VIPs and crew

Creating a security plan for each venue and public appearance

Working closely with publicists, show promoters, venue managers, ticketing agencies, etc.

Ability to solve extreme problems. Like unexpected issues that may arise during touring - (medical, security, travel, contractual)

Leading a team of varying size to execute each event

On larger or longer tours, the duties above may be shared between two or more people.

Completely outlining the specific duties of a tour manager can be near impossible as there are countless scenarios on the road that beg the tour manager's attention.

Ultimately, the job of the tour manager is to make sure that everyone, including the artist, is okay and happy while on the road. Tour management can be both fun and stressful, but can also be very rewarding as it is crucial to the success of an artist’s touring career.

In our How to be a Tour Manager online course we teach our students that though there are so many tasks a tour manager has to accomplish, there is one thing you must do first.

You have to take care of yourself before you take care of others. Just like on a plane when you put your mask on first before helping others - same concept. Your mental health is extremely important, and denying self care on the road is a recipe for a quick death to your career.

You can start our tour management course for free by clicking here.

Flagging Down the Double E's

Tour Manager Richard Fernandez Talks Life on the Road with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty

1988-10-19, Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY

Flagging Down the Double E’s is an email newsletter exploring Bob Dylan shows of yesteryear. Some installments are free, some for paid subscribers only. Subscribe here:

Update June 2023: This interview is included along with 40+ others in my new book ‘Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members.’ Buy it now in hardcover, paperback, or ebook!

In a career spanning five decades and counting, Richard Fernandez has served as tour manager for too many iconic artists to name. When he won the concert industry’s highest award in 2016, Graham Nash said, “When musicians are out on ‘the proud highway,’ we need all the help we can get. The secret is a good tour manager. For decades, Richard has been that lifesaver.” Ric Ocasek said, “There was chaos, but he was always calm and cool. He is good with people, and has a computer in his head. Of all the crews I ever worked with, he’s really the only one I remember!” And who should show up at the actual ceremony to present him with the award but Tom Petty, who Richard worked with from 1978 all the way until Petty’s death in 2017.

It was through Petty that Fernandez entered Bob Dylan’s orbit . He worked as tour manager when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers backed Dylan in ‘86 and ‘87 and then, as Petty took a break from the road, continued on with Bob alone for the early years of the Never Ending Tour.

I called him up a couple months ago, as he was preparing to hit the road once more with Steely Dan, for a freewheelin’ conversation about his years with Dylan in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Tom Petty, and what life looks like for a tour manager in general.

Was your first time working with Bob the first time he worked with Tom, at Farm Aid in ‘85?

Yes. Bob came to [his and Petty’s shared manager] Elliot Roberts and said he was going to do Farm Aid and he wondered if The Heartbreakers could work with him.

We were rehearsing up at Universal Studios. Bob would come to rehearsal and he'd only talk to Tom and the band, which was cool. Nobody talked to him or anything, but the rehearsals went down well. Bob would just come in and do his thing and then he'd leave. That's about it. But when we got to Farm Aid, and they actually performed it in front of people, it was pretty amazing. They played unbelievably together. I thought it was just going to be a one-time shot. Nobody knew what was going to happen after that.

Were the Heartbreakers and Tom jazzed about it after the show, do you remember?

Yes. That's the one thing about The Heartbreakers that I didn't know when I first joined up with them, but learned. They were so respectful to the people that came before them. I took Tom and Mike [Campbell] and Ben [Tench] to see Muddy Waters at a club in Phoenix one time. During his encore, his road manager came up to me and said, "Hey, do they want to come back and meet Muddy?" We went back, and they're in his dressing room. The door opens, and here's Muddy. He's coming off the stage. He's got a towel around his neck and he's all sweaty. He looks up and the first thing he goes, " Tom Petty. How are you?" Tom was like a little kid going, "Oh my god, he knows my fucking name!" They were like puppies.

That's one thing I liked about Tom and The Heartbreakers. They respected everybody that came before them. Playing with Steve Winwood was like, “oh my god!” That's what I really dug about them cats. That's the way they were about Bob.

What is that first joint tour like, in Australia in ‘86?

I remember it going down very well over there. I remember promoters coming up to me and going, "Wow, this is the best band he's been with! He's actually doing the songs!"

“He's actually doing the songs”…

I mean, doing them in a way they recognized them.

The band, the Heartbreakers, they played together . Sometimes when [Bob] was singing, if he had his electric guitar, he'd be hitting the wrong chords and stuff like that. It never bothered The Heartbreakers, because they just stayed right there. “We got our rhythm section. We know where we're at.” Tom would go, "Here we are. Here we are." And [Bob would go,] "Oh. Yeah."

On that first tour, once we realized we were going to go do a tour in New Zealand and Australia, Bob would still just come to rehearsal, talk to maybe the band and nobody else, and leave. That was about it. Then we did a couple of shows.

We'd already had a few shows under our belt, we went to Sydney and it was one of the backup singers, Queen Esther Marrow's, birthday. I talked to one of the girls and said, "Listen, I'm going to set up a thing on the day off for the band and some of the crew guys. We'll set up at a restaurant, have a party for her. I'll get a cake." She said, “Oh, that'd be great. Let's not tell her.” I said, "Okay fine, don't tell her." I tell [Bob’s] manager [Jeff] Kramer. He goes, "Oh, that's a great idea." I get this restaurant, I set this party up, I sort transportation for the band and the crew to get over there and back.

I haven't even talked to Bob once yet, since before Farm Aid. I haven't spoken one word to him.

I'm sitting there in my room and it's about 11:30, something like that. We're not leaving until six. The phone rings. I pick it up, and he goes, "Hey Richard, it's Bob." I go, "Hey, hi, how are you doing?" The first thing in my mind, I pick up my itinerary, because I got a lot of new guys in the crew. I pick up my itinerary, I'm looking through going, "Bob fucking who?" He goes, "I was wondering what time the transportation is leaving for Queen Esther's party." I'm looking down, going, "Yeah, I think about six o'clock." [Suddenly] I realize, "Oh, fuck, it's Bob ."

That was the first time I actually spoke to him. We'd already been through two full rehearsals and the Farm Aid thing, and that's the first time I actually spoke to him.

What would a typical show day look like on the road for you?

Well, it starts the night before. I printed out these sheets and stuck them underneath everybody's door. It says, today, you do this, this, this and this, soundcheck, whatever is happening. After the gig, this is what we're doing. Even though they have a book that says that, this gives them specific times if any changes have to happen. Tom liked it because he said in the mornings, he sees it, it's underneath his door, and he can look right over and go, "Okay, yes that's what I got going on." He leaves it there.

Then in the mornings, it's checking up, it's calling the venue. Let's say they load in at nine or ten o'clock. I'll call the venue about eleven and see how it's going. If there's any problems that have come up, if there's any problems that they foresee, whether they be technical, they can't get something in or out, or a logistical problem where there's some equipment that's [still] on its way. Just anything that might arise.

I want to know what's going on in the building, so when I talk to the artists when we get to the building, there are no surprises. Then once I've talked to building people, I start getting in touch with the people in my staff and say, "Okay, this is what we're doing today." Then check up on transportation, make sure it is going to be there when we go into the venue for the soundcheck.

I've been working with Steely Dan for many years now. Donald Fagen is a guy that does soundchecks every day, and I really respect him for it. I worked for Tom for 38 years. After the first 10 years, Tom never did a soundcheck. The only time we ever did a soundcheck is when we did the Super Bowl . He would just walk in the building, plug in the guitar. He paid everybody really good money, and he expected it to work.

That's one thing Tom cared about. He goes, "The lights are the lights, whatever, but don't ever try and save money on the sound.”

Was that what happened with the Dylan and Heartbreaker shows? The soundcheck was done by band or crew guys?

If we were doing multiple shows, Tom would go in there and do a soundcheck with the band out of respect for Bob. Even if Bob didn't show up. He just wanted Bob to know, "We're here for you. If you want to come down, let's go. You've got a full band ready to go if you want to work up something, or if you got a new tune you want to do." We were on Bob's clock. Tom understood that, and he wanted to make that apparent.

Would Bob show up much?

Oh yes, he would show up. I got a funny story about Bob at a later show. When I was working with the G.E. [Smith] band, for the whole tour, Bob wore gray sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a baseball hat. He came into every building that way. Sometimes he played on stage that way.

It was Halloween, and G.E. comes to me and he says, "Hey, I want to do something. I want to get the whole band and crew gray sweatshirts. I'm going to have them wear baseball hats and shades when he walks in the building." The band, the crew, everybody that was associated with us, the guy at the soundboard, the monitor guy. Gray sweatshirt, baseball hat, and shades.

We did the soundcheck, and Bob came up. He just looked. He didn't say nothing. Played the whole soundcheck, 20, 30 minutes. Put the guitar down. I'm leading him and his security guy to the dressing room. I opened the door, and he stops. He goes, "Hey, tell those guys I want my clothes back when this is over, huh?"

I tell you, it's hysterical.

The other good thing that happened on the G.E. tour is, we were doing Radio City Music Hall for four or five nights [in 1988]. We had just played Philadelphia, and Bob was unhappy with the performance of the band in Philadelphia. He called my room the night we got into New York. It was unusual for him to call that late for anything. He goes, "I really didn't have a good time. It just wasn’t clicking." I said, "Okay, let me talk to G.E. We'll make sure they're down there for soundcheck as early as they can."

I call G.E. and G.E. goes, "Okay, we'll be at Radio City, and we'll make it happen." They got down there real early. Soundcheck usually doesn't start ‘til 4:30 or 5 because we had a eight o’clock show. They were down there at 3:00 going through everything. About four o'clock, Bob and his wardrobe lady and his security guy walk in the building.

I'm in the production office, and the production manager comes in and goes, "Bob just walked in. Oh man, he is on it." I go, "What do you mean?" He goes, "He's yelling at everybody he sees."

Then his wardrobe lady comes in. I said, "How's Bob?" She goes, "Oh, he's in a fucking surly mood. He's been screaming at me all morning. As soon as [security guard] Callaghan got there, he started yelling at Callaghan. He walked in, he yelled at Al [Santos, production manager] on the way up [to the dressing room]." I said, "Oh shit."

I call Callaghan, I says, "Callaghan, bring him down to rehearsals." [Dylan] goes out there. He's not saying much, but he's not yelling at the band. He just goes right back to his dressing room.

I go back to the production office, and I'm just sitting there. Suzi, his wardrobe lady, comes down. She says, "Bob wants to see you." I'm like, "Oh, fuck. Jesus Christ."

There’s one thing Tom Petty said when I got a lifetime achievement award a while back . He goes, "You know, the road manager is the toughest job on the whole thing, because if anything goes wrong, it's your fault." [laughs]

So I go, "Okay, just put your best game-face on, and do what you can do. Tell him you tried as hard as you can, and, I'm sorry dude."

He's gone to these long dressing rooms with mirrors on all over the side, for a chorus line or something, but he's the only person in there. As I opened the door, he's got his back to me. There's a mirror there. He's plucking away on a guitar. I didn't want to disturb him, so I opened [the door] and let it close very slowly. He sensed there was somebody there, and he looks in the mirror. He sees me. He turns around and looks at me and goes…"How about those fucking Dodgers?" [laughs]

The night before was a big night, the first night of the 1988 World Series where the Dodgers played the A's. Kirk [Gibson] goes in at the bottom of the ninth with two outs, they're down by one run, and hits a magic home-run. I'm a big Dodgers fan. I'm sitting in my room by myself watching the game, and when that happens, I just went nuts. I went yelling in my room, just hysterical.

[So at Radio City,] the door closes, he senses there's somebody there, and "How about those fucking Dodgers?" I say, "I couldn't fucking believe it!" He goes, "Yeah, what the fuck was that?"

Did he know you were a big fan?

We had been to baseball games together. We'd been to some minor league games where I didn't have to sneak him in. We also had been to Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees were really nice to us. We'd get three seats in a row, one of them on the end. We'd go to the Yankees office before the game and wait there. Then before the game started, I would go down and sit on the inside seat of the three, the one that was closest to the crowd. As soon as the bottom half of the first inning ended, Bob and Callaghan would walk down. Bob had his Bob Dylan uniform on, with the hood, the shades, the baseball hat, Levis, and just a ratty gray sweatshirt with no writing on it. Everybody was watching the game because it's the first inning and stuff. They would walk down and just sit right next to me. Bob would sit next to me and Callaghan would sit on the aisle.

We’d watch the whole game like that and talk baseball. He would notice stuff and go, "How come he did that?" I go, "Because that's a decoy. He wanted them to think…” He goes, “Oh, yeah yeah yeah.

You were like his baseball whisperer. You knew all the ins and outs.

Yeah, but he was pretty hip to the game. The other thing that we did on the G.E. tour is we would go to batting cages on days off, about five or six of us. Bob started coming. So he'd get in there and start hitting the ball. I go, "Dude, you have a batting stance like Rickey Henderson, holding it straight back." He goes, "I like him!"

It sounds like you didn't talk much early on. How did your relationship develop to the point where you're talking baseball at Yankees games?

Only because I never tried to initiate any conversation, other than if it was something business-wise - “we can't go on for five minutes because there's a guitar thing” or something like that. He understood that part of it, that’s why I was there. To make sure everybody is in the place where they're supposed to be with the right things. One time he called me a wrangler.

Being a tour manager, it's a fine dance because you're the guy that communicates with the management, the artist, and the crew. You're the guy that walks that whole line. You got to go to the manager and say, "We can't do this. We're changing this, and this, and this." Then you have things with the artist: “Rehearsals are doing this. Is this going to be okay for you?” And then the crew guys: "Oh, we need to get a guitar tech. Why don't you call what's-his-name in New York, see if he's available?" There's a lot of hats and a lot of people that I talked to.

It’s just a fine line that I have to walk, especially with Bob, because, at first, there was not a lot of communication. Then, all of a sudden, he realized that if he wanted something, if he let me know, it would get done.

Those early tours even with The Heartbreakers, they had so much respect for that cat, and continue to. I remember Tom telling me a story one time. I've always liked the song “Something Big,” but I never told Tom "you should play that song." I didn't want to be one of those cats. Then one day at rehearsal, he came and said, "Hey, let's do ‘Something Big.’”

I was stoked. I was talking to Tom, I said, "Hey, you’ve decided to do ‘Something Big’.” He goes, "Yeah, I was in the studio at home and I was deciding what songs am I going to play for this tour. I'm pulling up different stuff. All of a sudden, the buzzer rings, and I go to the gate.” He goes, “Yeah?” "It's Bob." They lived close to each other, down the road in Malibu. Bob came in, and said, "What are you doing?" [Tom] goes, "I'm trying to pick out some songs that I might do during the tour." Bob’s looking at what he had and goes, "How come you don't play ‘Something Big’? That's one of the best songs that you've ever wrote."

He pulled it up and he started playing it.

How did it happen that you transitioned to doing Dylan shows without The Heartbreakers?

Well, The Heartbreakers were not working. I never missed a Heartbreakers tour. They were working opposite each other for a while. There was one year where I did a Bob tour, I did Neil Young, I did Bob [again], and I did Tom. That was a crazy one.

Damn. And with Dylan, it's not like he was going out for two months a year and calling it quits. He was touring a lot.

Yes, we toured a lot. Tom was taking hiatuses too, recording albums, doing different stuff. He did Full Moon Fever on his own, just isolated.

Then in '91, I realized we were going to have a major [Petty] campaign in '92. I told Bob, I said, "You know what? I don't think I can be here next year. Tom's got a big thing going on. I'm going to be busy all year with that."

I wasn't sure what to expect, to be honest with you, but he was very gracious. He goes, "I understand. That's where you came from. You belong there with Tom."

Were you there before the G.E. band, when Bob was doing stuff with the Grateful Dead?

Yes. Bob played with them, I think, two or three different times [on the 1986 tour where Dylan was still backed by The Heartbreakers, before “Dylan & The Dead”]. I remember especially the time in Akron at the Rubber Bowl. That was the first time they played together. I remember me and Callaghan taking Bob over to their dressing room after his set, so they could work out what they were going to do on stage. It was like The Heartbreakers, nothing but respectful of Bob. "What do you want to do? Okay, we'll do it like that, then. Yes, that's cool. Okay, how about I do this there? No, no, no." It's like you could tell that they were digging it. They wanted to be up there with him.

It's the same vibe I got the first time walking into a building when Crosby, Stills, and Nash opened up for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Me and Tom were walking into the building before they went on. We're walking by their dressing room, and David, Steven, and Graham were getting ready vocally. They were tuning up. Me and Tom were walking by. He goes, "Stop." He just listens for a second. He goes, "That is so cool."

There's only one cat that I can remember who was on the same plane as Bob when they would meet and talk. That's George Harrison. He respected Bob, but wasn't like in awe of him.

There were the shows Dylan & the Dead played the next year without Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Were you a part of the Dylan touring organization for those?

Yes. I was there.

They made a live album that Jerry Garcia later said Bob picked all their worst performances.

He thought a lot different than everybody else. His whole perspective on things was different from most people's perspective.

I remember, him and [Jeff] Kramer, his manager, were having a discussion. We were in Europe. Kramer wanted him to go on a bus somewhere. Bob didn't want that. He wanted to be in a car. I was walking by the office, and Bob called me. He goes, "Richard, come in here. Tell Kramer it's more comfortable for me to ride in a car than it is in a bus." So I’m like, "You know, Bob likes to ride in a car more than he likes to ride in a bus." Then Bob goes, “See?”

I never would question Bob, whatever he wanted to do. He's got his reasons. I don't know what they are, but he's got his reasons.

What do you typically do during a show? Are you able to actually watch any of it, or you running around backstage doing stuff?

That's the one time when I got 40 eyes watching the people that I've been watching. All these 40 eyes, the crew and the light guys and everybody, they're right there. They're making this thing happen. I'll go back to the production office, but I never missed Tom Petty [doing] “Wildflowers.” I never missed that song.

[But] if there was a problem, I was there. There was a time at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, where Tom was playing, and the PA was intermittently cutting in and out to the audience. The monitors were great, though, so Tom has no idea. He's having a fucking great time.

Sounds great to him, but bad to everyone else.

Yeah. I'm standing behind his amp looking at him. He's like, "What's going on?" I had to pull them off the stage. He goes, "Why? I can hear." I say, "The PA is cutting off in and out." I knew he was pissed off.

Steve Winwood was standing at the side of the stage. Before I walked up, I said, "Steve, stay right here. Don't go anywhere." Because I knew Tom would be really pissed off if he came off stage in the middle of performance. He goes off, and I lead right to where Steve is. Steve goes, "Hey, hi, Tom!" "Oh hey, hi, Steve. How're you doing?" Steve goes, "Yeah, that's okay. They'll get it fixed." Then he goes, "Yeah, I know." I was thinking, "Thank you, Steve."

Cheered him up. Smart, very clever.

The other person around who is good like that, and I've had around to help me out is Jackson Browne, who's a close friend of Tom's. I've had to pull Tom off when Jackson was around, and as soon as he sees Jackson, he just [cheers up].

Do you ever have to interrupt Bob on stage, pull him off for some emergency or other?

No, but I'll tell you something funny. At Madison Square Garden, if you go over curfew, they charge you like $5,000 a minute or some ridiculous amount. Me and Bob had talked about this beforehand. I said, "After 11:30 PM they're going to start charging you." He goes, "Okay, fine." He comes out for the encore. I said, "You got five minutes, dude, and then we're going into big time." He goes, "Okay. G.E., we're doing this but we're doing it really fast. We're only going to play like two minutes."

They only played like a minute or two into the song and then, boom, it's done. Bob walks up to the mic and goes. "I'd like to play more, but it costs too much."

He's the same guy that, we were playing at the Greek Theatre in Hollywood, he's having a great time, they're kicking ass. He turns around to G.E. and he goes, "’My Way’, the way Frank Sinatra did it!" G.E.'s like, "Oh, okay…" [laughs] This is onstage! But they did it, and that's part of the genius. [Editor’s Note: Richard’s probably thinking of Sinatra’s “I'm in the Mood for Love,” debuted at the Greek in ‘88].

You mentioned Neil Young earlier. He was part of the band for the first few shows of the Never Ending Tour in '88. What do you remember about that?

He came to a couple of gigs. I'm not sure what happened. I don't think Neil wanted to do it. From what Elliot told Bob, Neil went down to Mexico on his boat or something.

Were there any other days or shows or events that jump out at you?

You know what always sticks out to me is the time that I played in East Berlin with Bob. We were on tour in Europe and [promoter] Barry Dickins called me up and said, "Hey, you've got a show here and you've got two days off and then you've got a show here. In between, we can do a show at East Berlin." I called up our production manager. I said, "Hey, can we do a festival in East Berlin?" He goes, "Yes, if we only pull out backline, and as long as they got some kind of lights, but if it's in the day, it really won't matter, what are they going to use for PA…” blah blah blah.

This is before the wall went down. This has been put on by the Communist Party, a free concert in the park. We get to the gig and there's 100,000 people. We’re just like, what the fuck? It was heads for miles.

I'm thinking, if the Communist Party put this on, they're trying to appease people. Why would they bring Bob Dylan here? He's singing all of his songs and these kids are just so into it. I went to the side of the stage, and am talking to this kid from Yugoslavia, all excited. "Oh, you work with Bob Dylan? As soon as we heard about it, we started driving to get here."

These are people that thought, "I never thought I'd ever see Bob Dylan." Just that alone to me was like, whoa, this is deep. This is way deep. They’re all singing their anthems back to him, and we are in a communist country.

I remember when the wall went down. We were on the road and I remember seeing Bob at the gig and he goes, "See what happened today?" I go, "Yes, I bet you one of the reasons is because of you, dude." He goes, "No, no, no." He would never take credit for anything.

Were you involved in the Grammy Awards when he played “Masters of War” in '91 ?

Yes. That's when he got the Lifetime Achievement thing or something. I remember we just came back from Europe. I remember Bob being up in his dressing room with Jack Nicholson and Yoko, then him coming down.

I think he gets uncomfortable and nervous accepting these kinds of things. He doesn't know how to really do it. I think it's something that makes him uncomfortable, to be the recipient of somebody putting you on a pedestal.

Both those guys, both Tom and Bob, I noticed they would get nervous at certain times. Tom would get nervous every time he walked on stage.

Really? Even after years?

After years. When we walked into the Super Bowl, it really freaked him out. Because at halftime, what happens is, the teams come in the tunnel, and we're walking out of the tunnel to go out to the stage. You're walking out of this tunnel, all of a sudden you've got 80,000 people yelling.

I'm walking on with the band. Tom is behind me. he's got his hand on my shoulder. We've got secret service guys. That's who they use for security, the secret service guys, because they don't fuck around. They talk nice and everything, but they know what the fuck is going on. I've got the secret service guy here, Tom's behind me, and he sees Tom’s hand on my shoulder. All of a sudden we get out to where there's people, and Tom puts both hands and he's like this on my shoulder [tightens grip] .

[The secret service guy] looks back, and he can see that. He says, "Stop." He turns around and he looks right at Tom. He goes, "Tom, you're in the safest place you can be right now. We do this all the time. Nobody's going to get near you." I can tell Tom was thinking, "Okay. This is what I needed somebody to tell me." If I told him, I'm five foot seven and 140 pounds and I don't carry a gun. I'm like his pal. With this guy, he knew that this guy was here for us. "We're doing this now. Come on. Let's go." "Okay. Fine."

Both Tom and Bob would get nervous at certain times. Tom more so than Bob, but Bob had his moments where he would get skittish or afraid. I remember some threatening calls to Kramer's office when we were at Radio City Music Hall. Kramer had hired some extra security, the same kind of secret service guys. George [Harrison] was in Bob's dressing room, and I went up to get Bob because it was time to go on. Him and George, we walk into the elevator. George notices the guy at the elevator. George goes, "Bob, what's up with the suits?" Bob goes, "Oh, Kramer had some threatening calls and decided to call in some extra people." George goes, "Good move. Good move."

Was that generally stressful? Bob has some overly intense fans, you might say. I imagine there's a certain amount of nerves or tension. How was that for you to deal with?

Bob stayed in his rooms a lot. He'd go out for walks with Callaghan, but that would be very, very late at night. I took a couple of strolls with them late at night. We’d have to walk about 50 feet behind him.

One of the things that intrigued Bob was buskers. He would stand across the street and watch people. I think, in his mind, he goes, "I wish I could do that." He couldn't.

Those people probably never knew that Bob Dylan had been standing there.

Callaghan came to my room one time and said that him and Bob were out for a walk, and Bob had seen this busker and told Callaghan that he wanted him to open up the show. Callaghan went and got his number, and the guy goes, "Are you kidding me?" He goes, "No. Somebody's going to call you."

Callaghan gives me his number and says, "Hey, call this guy. Bob wants him to open up this show." I called the guy up. He didn't believe me. I said, "Why don't you come to the Sebel Townhouse here in Sydney? We're going to fly you with the band to--" I think it was Melbourne. I said, "We'll get you a hotel room. We'll fly you back the next day." He just couldn't believe it. He came to the townhouse and he goes, "This is really going to happen?" I go, "Yes, it's really going to happen, dude."

That's amazing.

I think in the back of his mind, [Bob] really digs that at some level. He was the most interesting cat I've ever worked with, let me tell you. Being a big jazz fan, I've seen a lot of video of Miles, and the way he handles rehearsals reminds me of Bob in the cryptic way they get things done. It's not really the normal way, but it's a little cryptic, how they get people or musicians to do what they want to do without really saying, "Play a G" or something like that. I found those similarities and it cracks me up.

I hope that Bob would find it a compliment to be compared to Miles. I always thought I wanted to work for a jazz band. I didn't really like a lot of rock and roll.

You got Steely Dan. For a rock band, they bring in more of that than some.

My father is a guy who turned me on to music and jazz and everything like that. When I did a Faces show at the Hollywood Bowl, my mom and dad came to the show. I remember after I got done, I went back and saw my pop. He goes, "Hey, that's a great blues band, you work for.” [Then] I had started working with the Eagles. He came to the show and said, "Oh, you're working for a cowboy band now." Then finally in '93, I guess this is the first Steely Dan tour after their hiatus, I brought my dad out to see one of the Steely Dan shows. He goes, "You're finally working for a jazz band."

Do you ever bring your dad to one of the Dylan shows?

I don't think so. He dug Bob. When I was listening to Bob at 16 and 17, my dad goes, "That's not bad." He was a jazz guy, but he was like, "Hey, that's okay."

Bob was, like I said, if not the most, at least the top two most interesting people I've ever worked with. I respect the hell out of him, let me tell you, to this day.

I felt really honored one time just because I was in town in LA, getting ready for something with Tom. Bob was doing a charity at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It wasn't long after I'd left, maybe like three or four or five years after. Their production manager went, "Hey, come on down to rehearsal." Because I knew everybody. It's the same crew and everybody; I had hired a bunch of those guys.

I got there early and I'm standing at the mixing board with a mixer guy. Me and Eddie are talking and stuff, and Bob and the band walked on stage. Bob's looking around and goes, "Is that Richard out there? Get up here where you belong!"

One time I was on my way back from a Tom Petty tour. I used to have to go through Honolulu before they booked nonstops from LA into Lihue [Hawaii]. I was in Honolulu waiting for my connection to go back home. I see Sam, Bob's son, sit down. He goes, “Richard, what are you doing?" I say, "I'm going home. What are you doing?" He said, "Oh, I'm going to Lihue. I'm on my honeymoon." I went, "Congratulations. If you need anything, let me know. I'm there."

The next day [Sam] calls me. He goes, "I’d really like to go surfing." I said, "My next door neighbor has like 30 or 40 boards of all different sizes. Pick out what you want. I'll take it down there." I got a local beach about two miles down the road for me. We throw the boards in the back of the truck. Me and Sam go down there. We go out, we go surfing, and it was fun. We had a great time. He goes, "Hey, you know what, besides my wife, this made my vacation."

When I got up on stage, [Bob] shakes my hand. He shakes your hand like a gangster shakes your hand. They just put it out there and they don't grip back. Then, all of a sudden, I start to pull back and he holds it. I look at him and he goes, "I really want to thank you for taking care of Sam. He had a great time." I said, "No problem. Anything for your boy, dude."

It's funny that we have this relationship that's not a friendly relationship like, "Hey, Bob, what are you doing? What's going on tomorrow? What have you been eating?" But if we see each other it's like, "Hey, how's it going?" "Good. I'm glad." "How's your family." "Are your kids good?" "Great."

I remember him calling me the day after Tom passed, just to check in. He just wanted to call and say, "How are you doing?" He goes, "I know, it's tough, but we got to hang in there." I don't talk hardly any to him, but knowing that he called up and cared about a mutual friend that we both really loved…

Thanks to Richard for taking the time to chat! He he hosts a weekly jazz radio show Monday nights on Hawaii’s KCCR, which you can listen to online here . And if you want to learn more about his non-Dylan career, check out this great video:

Here’s one of the Radio City shows Richard mentioned, from 33 years ago today.

PS. In a few days I'll run an interview with another behind-the-scenes person from the early days of the Never Ending Tour. This one will be exclusively for paid subscribers. Sign up here:

Update June 2023:

Buy my book Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members , containing this interview and dozens more, now!

Ready for more?

How SpinCycle is Helping Impoverished Populations

5 Facts About the SpinCycle

• Though created in the U.S., the product trials took place in Africa. Richard Hewitt returned to Burundi in 2012 to test out the first SpinCycle. Since Burundi inspired the idea, Hewitt figured it was the most appropriate place to test out the first re-designed SpinCycle. While in Africa, Hewitt met a young man who worked as a clothes washer in the small village of Ngozi. Hewitt gifted the first SpinCycle to that laundryman, equipping him with a cycle-powered full laundry service.
• The SpinCycle started as a mandatory college project. To fulfill his Product Design major at Sheffield Hallam University, Hewitt had to complete and present a self-directed project . After his experience in Burundi, Hewitt decided to center his project around the construction of a cycle-powered washing machine. This earned him top grades and recognition from his teachers as well as national media recognition from supporters all over the world.
• Hewitt’s vision for the SpinCycle was that of a “micro-enterprise in the developing world.” In every aspect of the design process, Hewitt considered the needs of impoverished communities, including those of the Burundi village community. Therefore, Hewitt designed the SpinCycle to save time, energy and water for those who lack access to these basic necessities. Additionally, Hewitt wants the SpinCycle to be easily accessible for populations without available electricity. He hopes to help provide better resources to impoverished people around the world.
• SpinCycle plans to open a factory in Africa to distribute the machine to impoverished populations. Twenty-eight of the poorest countries in the world are in Africa, making Africa the poorest continent on earth. Therefore, Richard Hewitt and other SpinCycle investors are planning to open a SpinCycle factory in Africa, centralizing the company near the majority of its user base. SpinCycle also plans to partner with charities and other non-governmental organizations throughout Africa to distribute the SpinCycles to communities without electricity.
• The SpinCycle could also be useful after natural disasters. Storms and natural disasters, both in the United States and abroad, largely impact a community’s electricity. Losing power typically prevents individuals from showering, cooking and doing laundry. The SpinCycle does not require any electricity, however, allowing users to wash their clothes without interruption. The SpinCycle is helping impoverished populations in remote areas. However, many individuals worldwide could use and appreciate the invention as it is cost-effective, easy-to-use and environmentally friendly.

Richard Hewitt transformed a college project into a tangible invention that is helping the world’s poor. The SpinCycle is helping impoverished populations by saving time, water, energy and money. More importantly, though, this invention encourages innovation and growth in these poor, rural communities that could improve life in many societies for years to come.

– Ashley Bond Photo: Wikimedia

“The Borgen Project is an incredible nonprofit organization that is addressing poverty and hunger and working towards ending them.”

-The Huffington Post

Inside the borgen project.

• Board of Directors

Get Smarter

• Global Poverty 101
• Global Poverty… The Good News
• Global Poverty & U.S. Jobs
• Global Poverty and National Security
• Innovative Solutions to Poverty
• Global Poverty & Aid FAQ’s

Ways to Help

• Call Congress
• Email Congress
• 30 Ways to Help
• Volunteer Ops
• Internships
• The Podcast