The May 24, 1975, edition of Cash Box magazine with Texas rockers ZZ Top on the cover marked my professional writing debut, when I was still going by Stephen Peeples without the middle initial K (Kerr, my maternal great-grandmother’s maiden name).
It was 12 days after my first day on the job at the venerable music trade magazine, then the industry’s No. 2 publication behind Billboard, and ahead of newer trades Record World and Radio & Records.
How I broke into the entertainment business as a music journalist is a tale told previously on this website in the feature “Beatles on Sullivan Changed My Life for 50 Years,” which ties in with a recap of my first few weeks at Cash Box in the feature “‘Dandy’ Don Whittemore – A 50-Year Appreciation,” a tribute to the RCA promo guy who urged me to view Cash Box as just a launch pad for better gigs.
Those stories serve as prequels to this one.
The First Day, May 12, 1975
The morning of May 12, 1975, I drove my white ’68 Dodge van from the low-rent district of Culver City to the middle of the billion-dollar music and film industry on Sunset Boulevard, at 6565, just east of Crossroads of the World, and just west of RCA, Columbia, and CNN.
Mine was the funkiest vehicle in the building’s parking lot. My hair was shoulder-blade length, I had a Fu Manchu-ish mustache, and wore denim work shirts, rock t-shirts, jeans, and cowboy boots. Definitely counterculture, definitely un-hip in Hollywood.
Getting off the elevator on the 5th floor, with adrenaline pumping and my U.S. Navy WWII dad’s “No guts, no glory!” ringing in my ears, I walked through Cash Box’s big double doors – the ones I had changed the locks on two weeks earlier in my just-concluded temporary career as a locksmith – and joined the media circus.
David Budge, the editor (and former lead singer of New York’s Druids of Stonehenge a decade earlier), who’d interviewed and hired me, introduced me to the rest of the staff, including ad sales director Ed Adlum and fellow editors Phil Alexander, the pop music ed; Jess Levitt, the R&B ed; and Marc Shapiro, the album reviewer. All were friendly and welcoming. They’d probably been just as terrified on their first days as I.
Shapiro and I shared an office overlooking Sunset Boulevard, and for the first time since high school, several years earlier, I sat down behind an electric typewriter. Necessity being the mother of invention, I quickly figured out how to transfer the word flow from thought-to-pen/paper to thought-to-typing.
Marc was a riot to work with. He was wild-haired, had a slightly crazed demeanor, was a huge metal fan, very sharp, wicked sense of humor. He hated most country music, too, and we had lots of fun with that. He’d be on the other side of our office, reviewing albums by dropping the needle anywhere on a side for maybe 5-10 seconds, and writing a short review. My album collection immediately began to expand appreciably with the stuff he didn’t want to keep. (Marc went on to be a prolific New York Times best-selling author.)
Also on the first day, Budge took me to meet the boss, Cash Box chief George Albert. He was an archetypical old school East Coast music industry character. Inside his large, wood-paneled, garishly decorated office, which smelled like cheap cologne, the walls were covered with framed Cash Box covers and backstage photos of GA (as the staff referred to him) with celebrities like John Lennon and Elton John.
Albert sat behind an imposing desk, wearing a leisure suit with long, pointed collars. His voice was gruff, but he was cordial as he welcomed me to the magazine and told me I was in good hands with Budge.
After that brief welcome visit as the new kid, my contact with George was very infrequent, which was fine by me. I didn’t want to get any of that on me.
I did, however, have a few fun times off-campus with George’s grandkids, Judy and Mark, who also worked at the magazine in support roles. They were party animals the same age as I, mid-20s. I’ll just leave it there.
First Masthead Appearance
First masthead appearance: Somebody in production at the magazine’s printing plant in Culver City left Editor David Budge’s name out (where the blank space is), and the black line under my name indicates a piece of type sloppily pasted over the recently fired editor’s name.
First Time Name in Print as a Pro
My name appeared in print for the first time as a pro in the “Points West” column, thanks to my new colleague Phil Alexander. The Waylon Jennings “insight” piece he referred to, my first full feature, ran July 12, 1975.
First Radio Column
The May 24 issue also included my very first radio column, after which at my request it was retitled “Station Breaks” for the rest of the 25+ I wrote for Cash Box. I continued with myriad columns and newsletters for the next 40+ years.
I had seen the Waylon and Jessi show – my very first concert without having to buy a ticket – at the Santa Monica Civic on Friday, May 16, just four two days after my interview with Waylon at RCA and the visit with DJ Jimmy Rabbitt on KMET-FM that night. My very first concert review was pending for the next issue.
I led off my first radio column with a much-sanitized recap of the the Waylon/Rabbitt encounter (leaving out the mountain of blow on a double album cover), and followed with quotes from my first phoner for a column item, with Charlie Tuna and Sharon Nelson.
Here’s the second half of my first radio column.
P.S.: A Willie Good Time Ahead
Since I started my professional writing career covering the Texas music scene on May 24, and over the next several months would write a handful of features involving Waylon, Willie, Lone Star Beer, and the progressive country “outlaw bit,” just as it was “getting out of hand,” as Waylon noted, it was a cool coincidence that this photo and caption also appeared in my first issue. I’d meet Willie on July 4, at his third annual picnic.
Paging through this May 24, 1975, issue of Cash Box for the first time felt surreal.
Except it was 100 percent real. It was the first of countless pinch-me moments and experiences in the half-century since.
And I’m not done yet.
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Thanks to the World Radio History website for archiving the Cash Box editions and making them available online.
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Stephen K. Peeples is a Grammy-nominated multi-media writer-producer and award-winning radio/record-industry veteran raised in Miami and Los Angeles by career newspaper journalists and music lovers. Based in Santa Clarita, California, he is (as of spring 2025) developing an art book-biography, “Boyd Elder, Artlaw: The Most Famous Artist You’ve Never Heard Of,” profiling the Texas artist who created the skull art for three classic albums by the rock group Eagles and much more (due in 2027). Peeples is also authoring a new Digi-book celebrating the 60th anniversary in 2024-2026 of Bruce Brown’s epic surf movie “The Endless Summer” in association with Bruce Brown Films LLC (due in spring 2026). See the “Stephen K. Peeples” page on his website. More original stories and exclusive interviews are posted there and on his YouTube channel.
Article: Peeples Cash Box Magazine No. 1 – 5/24/75
Category: News and Reviews
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Article Source: stephenkpeeples.com
