I met Tom Terrell in the fall of 1989, when he tour managed the second leg of the very first American tour by Zimbabwean legend, Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited.  The tour began in style, a double bill with Sekou Bembeya Diabaté of Guinea, a well-funded operation.  But when Third World Agency booked an additional leg for Mapfumo, the budget was much tighter—and that’s when Tom stepped into the fray.  In April, 2006, I interviewed Tom about this experience for a book I’m writing on Mapfumo.  A few months later, Tom learned he was sick, and on November 29, 2007, he died.  What follows is an edited version of our interview.  It’s loose, frank, and occasionally profane, but also passionate and brilliant.  I share it above all, because it’s 100% Tom!  Those who know him will not mistake his unique voice and mind in these words.  Those who never met him will wish they had.
Banning Eyre

I first heard Thomas's music, I think, around ‘87.  At the time I was on WHFS-FM, an alternative rock station.  I was a regular DJ, Monday through Friday, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and I was always looking for stuff, and I was always reading the British newspapers, music newspapers, NME, Melody Maker, like that.  And so, I read a review of this single that was on Rough Trade.  At the time, on the side, I was buying 12-inches and albums from these surplus houses, and they happened to have that, so I got it.  I was a professional DJ for WHFS, and I was also one of the top club DJs in Washington, and what they call street jocks.  I would get hired for parties and street fairs, or whatever, and also at the 930 Club.

Then I met Ken Kutch when he produced a show at the Warner Theater for the Police.  We started becoming friends because I was on WHFS, the pioneering alternative rock station in America really.  And so me also being the only black DJ, meant that I had a little bit of a different take on it.  I was a big Anglophile.  I used to go to England, and go to all the record companies, and I would bring back stuff and preview it.  And Ken became one of the many people who knew that with HFS, you could kind of come through the back door and get stuff played, like in the old days, if you knew a jock.  I was the most open jock.  So it started off like that.

Then one day, Ken calls me up and says he’s managing Thomas.  "Look, I've got this guy Thomas Mapfumo.  I'm going to need a tour manager.  It's going to start in the fall."  Now, here's the funny thing.  I still had no idea really what Thomas's music was about.  And Ken even described him as "like a reggae artist," so he didn't really know that much about what Thomas was about either.  This is now ‘89.  I've been with HFS since 1981, and I'm getting kind of disgruntled there, because I feel they're not paying me, and being the only black DJ, it was obvious that they didn't want me to represent the station, you know?  Consequently, I had a meeting with HFS in August, and they were just not going to pay me.  They were just not.  So I said, "F--- it.  I'm out of here."  And then came an article in the Post.  It was a big deal that Tom T. was leaving WHFS, and I had the Washington Post interview me.  And I just said that basically I left because they didn't want to pay me what I feel I was worth, and I was going to leave, but I'm going to go on tour with Thomas Mapfumo, who is this reggae star from Zimbabwe.  I had no idea.

But I agreed to do the tour.  Ken was going to pay me a decent amount of money.  He convinced me that he was really a good manager.  I had misgivings, but by then I said, "Well, what the hell."  I could come up and stay with my mother and father in New Jersey.  I could stay at Ken's place. 

So they flew me down to Texas.  Houston, I think.  The band had just played some kind of show down in either Houston or Dallas.  This was the last date with Bembeya.  I still hadn't seen the show.  I arrived just in time to see the next day when Bob Coen [Thomas’s Zimbabwean manager] was paying everybody.  And then Bob took me aside and told me, he said, "Look, Tom, I couldn't do it well, but you better watch out for these guys.  Thomas is going to insist that you get herb.  And the best thing you can do is to refuse him, because you're going to end up having to spend money from the gigs for this herb.”   

So anyway, the first gig is in San Diego, October 17th.  It was at SOMA, this collective, run by these two black women; they were holistic.  They had health food, all the stuff.  And so when the band got there, they took care of them nicely, with health food.  They gave them not only herb to smoke, but herbs for cleansing and everything.

And it was a good show.  That's when I first saw them, and I was mesmerized.  So mesmerized that I forgot to do what I was supposed to do, like give them water on stage, give them towels.  I was just hypnotized.  I couldn't believe it.  Watching the two sisters dance, Tendai and Kudzai.  Chartwell jumping between sax and mbira.  And Charles had that little, great, pixieish grin on his face.  Every time he would play something on his bass, it was like he had some private joke with himself when he gets certain key notes, and he would just laugh.  Then you start learning the personalities.  Right then, I could tell that Everson had a drinking problem.  The trumpet player.  I could tell right there.  And it wasn't that he was drunk so much, but I just knew.  Alcoholics just have a certain thing.  They never get rid of the alcohol.  It's in their skin, and it kinda makes them look a little waxy.

It took until about three shows before I started really seeing the personality of the band, and how it breaks down, and how Thomas starts running everything.  He is the daddy.  And then it breaks down.  The girls had no rights.  I mean, none.  The guys would change in the dressing room, and they would have to go in the bathroom, sometimes on the bus.  That really pissed me off.

Chartwell was the mbira player.  You had to give him respect.  He was almost like a Brahmin type guy.  And he was like Mingus up there.  I mean the other guys, they are all amplified.  But Chartwell, man, you just felt like he could walk around that damn stage and you would still hear him in the hall.  And Ephraim.  Killer guitar player!  They loved him, because they knew he was going to be a star.  And I could feel it.  That's one of the reasons why his death just crushed me, because I felt that this guy was going to be like a big, African guitar star.  He could have gone anyplace in the world.  And then the girls!  Their singing, their steps—they always reminded me of two teenage girls, at home, in the living room, or in the basement, just practicing routines all day and all night, and laughing. 

Vancouver, October 25, we play The Commodore.  And already the money is getting funny.  There is just not enough money.  These dates are so tight together, and some of them are just lame, like maybe a grand.  But when you’re talking about having a tour bus at $500 a week, not counting fuel, and then hotels, and per diems—13 people at $20 apiece.  You just couldn't make any money.  By the time we got to Vancouver, some people had to stay in the bus.  Some people had to stay in a couple of rooms in a hotel.  I got the girls a room.  I told them, "I will sleep on the bus.  Once.”

And this is when the famous comment came up.  Coming into Vancouver, we're going past this mall, and I just stand in the middle of the bus and say, "Attention, shoppers!  There is a mall to the left."  And they are just cracking up, because all they do is shop, shop, shop.  And to this day, they still say to me whenever they see me, "Attention, shoppers!” 

Now it's October 25.  The bus driver hasn't really been paid, because there's really no money to pay him.  We’re booked the next night, the 26th, in Seattle, which is not too bad.  But when we get paid, it's in Canadian money.  We are supposed to be getting paid in American money.  It's a sellout show.  They could have given us the money.  But nobody is scared of Third World Booking.  Anyway the next day the bus driver calls me the room and says, "Where's my money?"

I tell him, "I can give you this."

And he says, "I want all my money."

So while we’re doing this, I'm thinking, I better call a U-Haul or somebody.  So I go back to the room and say I’ll be right back.  I call and get two vans.  And now, it's starting to rain.  So he insists, and then he calls the cops on us.  The cops are there.  They are going to arrest us for not paying.  We’re thiefing him.  So I have to pay him.  I pay him in a lot of Canadian money, and I give him an exchange rate and all that, and before he can figure it out, he’s satisfied.  But he says he's not going to drive us any further.

And now, it's raining cats and dogs, and I'm pooped.  And I've got to drive one of the vans.  Chris Bolton, the engineer, is driving the other.  I mean, great.  He doesn't even have an American license.  And it is a tsunami out there.  It is raining so heavily that the windshield wipers are not really helping.  And everybody is bumper-to-bumper, I swear to God.  I don't know how he did it, but I actually was sleeping many times.  I kept waking up sleeping.  I don't know why we weren't dead. 

It’s Portland on the 27th.  Everything is cool.  Portland is where we got a bus.  How did we get a bus?  Ken somehow convinced this other bus company to get us another driver.  The first guy was having problems anyway with his bus.  It was starting to break down.  But now this next bus is basically a school bus.  It wasn't a yellow schoolbus, but close enough.   

We have got to go from Portland, Oregon, to Chicago.  I'm pretty sure we flew.  We could not have driven from Portland to Chicago in one day.  That had to be it.  We got another bus there.  So we're in Chicago for two days, and those are both good gigs.  In fact the Cloister Club was an incredible gig.  Very small place.  Packed.  And the place is vibing.  A lot of Zimbabweans there.  They’re even doing Tendai’s dance steps, high kicking up, and just going nuts, and Thomas is smiling, getting up and down on his knees, and he's just having a ball.  Chartwell is just hitting these great big, nasty sax things.  And Lancey on congas.  I mean, Lancelot’s playing is all right.  But this night, he was Ray Baretto.  And this night, Ephraim got the s--- right, totally sailed.  He was taking long solos, just gone, way up.  I still remember that gig to this day.  It was just incredible, incredible, incredible.

Then after the show, a lot of Zimbabweans come to the hotel, so they are partying.  And it gets to the point where I get a call from Thomas say about four o'clock in the morning, and he says, "Tom, you have to help me.  All my people are here, and they won't leave."

"Well," I said, "You’re Thomas Mapfumo.  Tell them to leave."

"No, you don't understand.  I can not tell them to leave.  If I tell them to leave, it's an insult.  You have to tell them to leave.”

I said, “What?!”  It's four o'clock in the morning, and now he's cutting into my little three-hour bedtime.  I'm really pissed.  So I go in there, and man, they do not want to leave.  Finally I say, "Look, you all gotta go.”  I got ugly.  "That’s it.  Out!  Gone!  Go!” 

And Thomas, of course.  "Tom, please.  These are my friends.  These are my people."  And I’m like, "Thomas, I don't care.  We've got a gig tomorrow.  These people have to go.” 

And one of the guys says English to Thomas, "What kind of man is this?"  You know?  And I'm like…  Man!  I don't want to be the bad guy at all, and then it's, "What kind of man is this?"  Then they start saying things in their own language, back-and-forth, and nod in my direction, and kind of give me a look like, hmmm.  And Thomas just puts his hands up in the air.  And when they finally leave, Thomas looks at me and just says, "Thank you, Tom.  Thank you."

So next, we go to Champagne.  It's really easy now.  We get there, and now we have the biggest block of time that we've ever had.  We can wash clothes.  Bob Diener is the best host.  He has organized s---.  He's got his record store, so he has Thomas doing an in-store.  It's a college town, kind of like Austin, Texas.  You walk around, and everybody is stoked to see Thomas Mapfumo.  Because Bob has been playing him on the college station, playing him in his record store.  He's got posters plastered all over the place.  I mean, crackerjack, the best promoter we had the whole tour.  And to top it off, after we do the gig, this guy Chef Ras.  This cat used to write articles for High Times, all this great organic stuff.  So Chef Ras is cooking these incredible vegetarian feasts, like you would not believe.  And that was the second killer gig.  Two killer gigs in a row.  Now we’re just rocking. 

But now, we've got to go down to Knoxville, Tennessee.  And this is a long trip.  I remember this one incident.  We were talking about stuff, and Thomas is talking about his past.  And he says, "Yeah, I used to sing copyright music."  He calls all cover songs “copyright music."  I think it was Charles who said, "Yeah, Thomas was great.  He used to do all the soul stuff.  Thomas, do the Otis Redding." 

So we're going down the highway, and in the middle of the aisle, Thomas starts singing "I've Got Dreams to Remember."  He gets down on his knees in starts going, "Baby, baby, baby, baby."  And just the absurdity of him during the Otis Redding thing with his thick accent of his, and he's good.  He's giving it.  He's doing the whole routine in the aisle, spinning around, dropping to his knees, like his got a microphone. 

“Thomas, do Otis Redding!  Call Otis Redding.  Call baby!  Call baby.”

He is calling, “Baby, baby, baby.”  And so now, we are actually having fun.  I think those where the happiest days of the tour. 

So we play Knoxville and Atlanta, and then, on November 5th, we were pulling into Charleston, South Carolina, and the thing about that was they had just had the big hurricane about a month earlier.  The place was wiped out.  The hotel we were staying in, which might have been a Holiday Inn or something, was like three-quarters water damaged.  So it was all kind of like creepy, because it was dampness, and mold here and there.  We were like the only ones there.  Nobody wanted to book a hotel there.  Charleston was devastated.  The gig was good, but then, we didn't have another gig until the 10^th,, which was messed up.  That's a big gap.

Now the 11th, we're playing the Kilimanjaro, in Washington.  This is where it really starts falling to pieces.  At this point in time, I'm going to give the band a party at my sister's house.  I tell Ken, "Look, man, they've had a hard time.  I think they should be in the home of like a black, American, middle-class family.  Because they are always in white people's houses, and they don't have much contact with black people."  So I thought it would be good.  So I told Ken I was gonna have my sister cook a big feast.  I was gonna spend money, “But you have to reimburse me.”

They just loved it to death.  And then we go back to the hotel.  The Kilimanjaro was supposed to take care of the hotel and everything.  Well, no.  Raymond Paris.  And Raymond, I hope you are immortalized.  You screwed us.  Raymond was supposed to pay the hotel.  The motherf---er didn't pay the bill.  And the next morning, we’re stuck there.  Maybe I shouldn't have made this decision, but I said, "Okay, we've gotto go to New York.  We've got S.O.B’s, the biggest gig, on the 14^th.”  I said, okay, we will just pay.  Because they were going to call the cops.  That was before the days of cell phones.  To try and reach somebody at Kilimanjaro by a pay phone was totally absurd.  And then we've got the bus out there, chugging, chugging, chugging, parked on a main street.  Raymond Paris cannot be reached.  So I paid it.

So now, we’re outside New York, at the Holiday Inn right by the Lincoln Tunnel.  Ken is not going to pay me for that meal at my sister’s house, and he’s pissed about the DC hotel.  Now, during the whole tour, Thomas has been calling his wife in Zimbabwe.  And he ain't going to pay for the phone calls.  So I have had to pay for his phone bills every day.  Calling from the hotel, so you know what that must be costing.  I asked him not to do it, and he’s like, "I must use the phone.  I must call my wife."  So finally, when we get to that Holiday Inn by the tunnel, that's it.  We are now at the bare minimum.  I have just got enough to pay for the rooms.

I tell the guy at the desk, "None of these guys except me can call out."  So now I'm sitting in my room at one o'clock in the morning, and there's a knock on my door.  “Thomas wants to talk to you."

"Why?"

"He wants to use the phone."

So I go to his room, and we get in this argument.  He is adamant.  He just doesn't want to And finally, I say, "You know something?"  I take the phone and throw it, not at him, but on the floor.  “F---ing call whoever you want.  F---ing call them.  I am through with this s---.  I'm out of here.  I'm tired of this bulls---.”

And he sys, “What?”

And so, I get on the phone right there, while he's in the room, and I call my mother.  “Ma, what’s up?  Ma, you know, I've been working with these people.  Look, Ma, would you mind if I asked y’all, could you come and pick me up?  Could you come tomorrow?  I've had enough of this s---.  I’m sorry, Ma.  Sorry I’m cursing.  But this is it.  I've had enough of this."

Now, my mother talks kind of loud anyway.  So I held the phone away from my ear, and she says, "That's all right.  We are cool.  We will take care of you.  Just leave them.  Leave them right there."  And he could hear this.

And I said, "Okay, Ma.  Thanks, Ma.” 

Then I said, “Thomas, I’ll call Ken in the morning.  He can arrange it, and the bus will take you in.  I'm going the other way.  I've had enough of you.  I've had enough of your authoritarian plans.  And you don't want to listen.  I'm out of here.”

“Oh, Tom, you don't have to curse."

“F--- if I don’t,” I told him.  So, I go back to my room, and one by one, all the members of the band are coming to my room, and telling me thank you.  "Nobody has ever stood up to Thomas before.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you."  It's weird.  It's like a pilgrimage.  They're all just, not all at once, but one by one.  The door closes, and the next one comes.

[Thomas eventually apologized, Tom relented, and the tour went on.]

So we're going to be at SOB’s on the 14^th, and they're doing a little photo session.  Adrian Boot, the photographer, is there.  Burning Spear is in town.  So it's Thomas, Burning Spear and the singer from Aswad.  So they take that picture, and Chris Blackwell comes to me during the photo session and says, "You’re Tom Terrell?"  I said yeah, and he said, "I just want to tell you thank you for all you've done.  Because I've heard about the whole thing."  And I think that helped me when Jerry Rappaport, months later, wanted me to work at Antilles. 

SOB’s was a triumphant gig.  I think you all taped it [for Afropop Worldwide].  There were great shows, superb shows, but there was not a bad show.  Even when they were playing in that window of the restaurant in California, that was not a bad show.  And every show, every time that band played, with the energy they put out, it really kicked away the gloom for the next 12 hours.  No matter how dire it was just before we went onstage—and many times it was dire—they would play, and then afterwards, we would be so up.  That kept me sane. 

And also, it made me not hate Thomas, because I could have very easily hated him.  But somebody who could do stuff like he did, and put out the vibe like he did.  No.  You can't hate him.  Because you can't be worthless and an asshole and play music like that, and to sing like that, and to have a band and put out that energy, and to be the locus of that energy.  You can't.  There was also something else that tempered how I was around him.  This guy is a patriot.  He’s a war hero.  He’s inspired hundreds of thousands of people.  He defied a government.  At the end of the day, I’ve got to give this guy leeway.  It’s making it harder, but I’ve got to give him leeway.  He’s done greater things than I've ever done or probably will ever do. 

It was a great tour.  I learned a lot.  It was one of my most profound musical experiences.  I’m so grateful that I did have the opportunity to be on tour with Thomas Mapfumo.  And it's funny.  To this day, I meet the different members of the band and they say, "You are Tom Terrell?”  Obviously, I'm still a legend.  He tells everyone.  So in spite of everything, it will always be a cherished part of my life, and something I’m very proud of.  One thing about Thomas Mapfumo, you work with that guy and you really know what you’re made of.  And it all started with, I thought he was a reggae musician, and I said, “That’s not a problem.”