Jerry Goldstein's speech at the unveiling of War's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

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Film producer and singer-songwriter Jerry Goldstein's speech at the unveiling of War's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at 6212 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, USA.

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00:00Our first speaker is a co-writer, producer, co-manager, and one of the

00:07creative forces behind WAR. Please welcome, Jerry Goldstein!

00:13So, so Lonnie Jordan and I have been doing many, many, many, many, many

00:29just newspaper, magazine interviews, TV interviews, and the one question that

00:38everybody asks is, how'd this all happen? You know, how did WAR become WAR? So that's

00:44what I'll do today. I'll tell everybody how this happened, okay? In 1969, back a few

00:52years, we had a poster company, a very successful poster company, a guy named

00:57Steve Gold, and myself, and we represented Jimi Hendrix, and the Rolling Stones, and

01:04Led Zeppelin, and the Doors, and the Cream, and 50X, and we decided that we should sell

01:10the posters on the road. You know, we'll go out on the road, we'll sell the posters,

01:15we made little tour books, we sold those also. We basically put together the modern

01:20merchandising business that exists today, with the t-shirts, etc., and the hats. One

01:25of our poster salesmen was a guy named Peter Rosen, who kept saying, you got to hear my

01:31band, you got to hear my band, I'm really a bass player, we have this band, The Night

01:35Shift, and they're really fantastic, you got to hear my band, I mean, a hundred times a

01:39day. So finally, I said, okay, I'll hear your band. So I booked Studio Instrument Reynolds,

01:46which is down the street on Santa Monica Boulevard in Argyle, and they showed up, I showed up,

01:52they played their music, it was way different than anything I'd ever heard. They could play

01:59rock, they could play funk, they could play jazz, they could play blues, they could play

02:03Latin, and they were in every genre, and it really threw me back, because I just really

02:09didn't know what to do with a group that could do all of that. And then they played the Rolling

02:15Stones Painted Black, they did a Latin version, that was just like, stunned me, okay? And I went,

02:22you know what, you guys keep rehearsing here, I'll come out every once in a while, we'll

02:27write some songs together, come up with something, let's, I don't know what to do yet, but we'll

02:32do something. And so they told me that they were playing behind this football player named

02:39Deacon Jones, this great Rams, you know, superstar, Hall of Famer, right? And he was doing a Las Vegas

02:46show, and they were the backup group, and they were going to play the rag doll in North Hollywood

02:50in about a week. And I said, yeah, I'll go out and check it out. As fate would have it,

02:56Eric Burden from the Animals shows up at one of my acts on the poster world, shows up very despondent

03:04in my office going, my current group of animals just broke up, my manager took all the money,

03:12I'm going back to New Castle, and I'm retiring from the business, I can't do this anymore. So it took me

03:18about two hours to get them off the floor, and we convince them that, look, just that's, you know,

03:23you're too talented for that. And by the way, I found this band that I don't know what to do with,

03:28but maybe you'd like them. And they're playing the rag doll tonight. So why don't you come down?

03:33Okay, so we meet at the rag doll. And Lee Oscar is living with Eric at the time, I think, right?

03:40And so Lee shows up with Eric. And there's Deacon Jones doing his show. He's doing like one handed

03:49pushups with the mic in the other hand going, Oh baby, don't leave me. You know what I mean?

03:53And it was quite interesting and quite different. And I went, Oh, okay. And, but after he did his

04:00thing, the band jammed that night for about an hour and Lee got up and jammed with the band. But of

04:06course the band thought that Lee was Eric Burden cause they had no clue who Eric Burden was. Okay.

04:11But everybody had a good time and I called Eric the next day and he said, and I said, so what'd you

04:17think of the band? So Eric goes, we're rehearsing at three o'clock at SIR. I went, Oh, that's a good sign.

04:25And so we got to SIR and there were four, there were five horn players. He fired four of the five horn

04:30players right away. And he kept Charles Miller and put Lee Oscar together with Charles Miller.

04:36And that was the horn section. I went, that's interesting. I'd never seen that before,

04:39but we'll see what happens. So they rehearsed for about a month. We did a couple of local dress

04:45rehearsal gigs and clubs. And the first real gig that we played was the Devons Downs Pop Festival,

04:52three day festival, a hundred thousand people, um, starring Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Frank Zappa.

05:01And we played and followed Creedence Clearwater revival, which was huge at the time. And this

05:07is their first gig in front of a hundred thousand people and didn't play one animal song, a new

05:13repertoire of rock jazz and blues and tore it up. Everybody loved it. We couldn't believe it.

05:20Everybody was happy. So we figured this is going to happen. So Eric and I, and my then partner,

05:26Steve Gold met in the office a few days later when we formed this company called Far Out,

05:32which is pretty far out and still here. And we figured that we got to give this group a name

05:39because the night shift just doesn't work for us. And so we mulled it over. And it's like,

05:43if you remember 69 was like peace and love and the Vietnam war was happening or whatever.

05:49So we decided to call these guys war. Okay. Figuring it would create a reaction and nobody would ever

05:57forget the name. Okay. And in reality, here we are 55 years later, and it seems like nobody forgot the name, huh?

06:05So I would like to thank the original members, the current members, which Monty will introduce you to.

06:23Um, our families, our friends, all of the musicians that have played in war over the years. And there's

06:33been many, many musicians that have come in and played with us. The lowrider clubs, our fans,

06:41and most of all, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for giving us this fantastic honor of the star

06:53on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Thank you.

07:06So thank you.

Jerry Goldstein's speech at the unveiling of War's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

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