Publisher's Synopsis
The Budweiser Superfest during the 1980s was an historical soul music, funk, and rhythm and blues musical festival tour. There were other national music tours, but none with its multi-dimensional social and economic impact of a Budweiser Superfest tour. The music was unmatched - the best! The Budweiser Superfest! These early years of the Superfest presented blockbuster concerts comprising entertainers of the 1970s and 1980s (and beyond) who collectively accounted for 90 Grammy Awards. Quincy Jones was tops with 27, the top African American Grammy Award winner, and Stevie Wonder with 25 Grammy Awards. There were seven additional entertainers who were multiple Grammy Award winners: Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Temptations, Patti LaBelle, Peabo Bryson, James Ingram, Commodores, James Brown and Lou Rawls who appeared at the first concert event. Most of the other performers were Grammy Award nominees. There are no weak links when you have a lineup of artists that have accumulated 150 Grammy Award nominations during and around the 1980s Superfest era. The Budweiser Superfest was brilliantly conceived and was an immeasurable force that guaranteed Budweiser's stature as the King of Beers. It was an immeasurable tribute to the marketing genius and stewardship of a New York-born corporate marketing legend - Victor M. Julien.I was dubbed the Ambassador affectionately by the national tour team. It was an honor, like being named a football team captain. Being the Ambassador had a mystic soulful connection to my childhood life listening to doo wop on the corner, and the intrinsic connection that I have had all my life with music. Those early years prepared me for being a part of the Budweiser Superfest, making my job a labor of 24-karat love and unabridged joy to have been a part of it all.The annual super musical festival had an earthquake-like impact on Black America and urban markets economically and socially. It circulated dollars in the community from the paycheck to the barber shops, to the hairdressers, to the clothier stores, to the bars and restaurants, to the shoe stores, to local gas stations, in local hotels, and at local nightclubs to ball on Saturday night and rip it up. The only thing negatively impacted perhaps was church on the Sunday morning, because if you got home before four in the morning, chances are, you weren't at the Superfest. You had to get sharp to rip it up with some stylish vines, and whether or not you were like Little Richard and had an "88" - you had to have a date, for the Budweiser Superfest. Or a plan to score a date on the fly once you got there. Like Little Richard, you didn't mind spending your dough, to be one happy soul, to shake it up, ball it up, rock it up and rip it up.In each city, each year the super rhythm and blues and funk musical festival generated an immeasurable noise level, blasting over the air waves purchased on local television, local radio; lining local streets and boulevards with billboards; and full-page advertising spreads in national and local magazines and local newspapers that reverberated weeks before the shows ever hit town.