The Mafia's Role In The Music Industry | Michael Franzese

Michael has an incredible memory for detail and a natural speaker.

He’s better at producing content than most YouTubers he really is a boss and takes business serious in all aspects

Michael has incredible natural charisma. He's easy to like.

I am a live sound engineer... I started touring with bands in 1989. Over the years, I remember working venues up and down the east coast, from Florida to New York. Many of these venues were clearly mafia connected. I remember many of the booking agents, booking us into these places, were either Italian themselves...or there were Italians around that they were answering to. This was generally a cash at the door kind of business. Very easy to manipulate the numbers. Many times I saw tickets that had already been turned at the door by patrons, being resold to walk up customers. The venues were often sold well beyond capacity, by selling the allotted amount of tickets twice. Bands are generally paid 50% of their fee up front, before the tour ever starts. This money is used for expenses involved in getting the tour started. Plane tickets, tour bus rentals, hotels, production equipment rental, etc... Then the artist would receive the balance of the money, on the day of the event, almost always in cash. Many times in these mafia connected venues, there would be additional "fee's" for a variety of things, pulled from that final balance, before the artist received the payment. You always just kinda knew not to question it. Many times bands will rent equipment, locally, to produce their concerts. Concert sound, stage lighting, band equipment...might all be rented from local vendors. Often you HAD to use certain vendors for these items. Things got difficult and the gig would be in jeopardy, if you attempted to go outside of those "approved" vendors. But in all honesty... I preferred some of those situations, over the corporatization that you see these days with the likes of AEG and Live Nation.

I work in the music industry. I guarantee that wise guys would treat artists better than Spotify does. Ohhhh!

I can't belive how fast Micheal puts out his content he is grinding like a beast, and every video is better than the last one, best channel on youtube everybody subscribe!!!

I had a friend who was a phenomenal pianist and singer named Charles Brown. In the late 40's and early 50's he had some big hit records. In the 60's he quit a job at mob-owned venue, without permission. He hid for years, working as a janitor. In the 80's, he finally made another album. Singer Bonnie Rait found him and took him on tour with her. He started recording again. To me, he was a Buddha. I saw him a few weeks before his death from a sudden heart attack in 1999. He was happy and serene.

Mike is a top tier story teller... no matter how big or small the stories are, you're totally glued

All I can say is, that's one hell of a way to refresh someone's memory lol 😂😂😂. Don't mess with Sonny Franzese RIP 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏.

I would love it if you could do a Video on Mafia outfit styles through early 1900s to the 1980s and your thoughts on it 😁

I love these videos. You’re like a grandad telling me about the stories of the olden days. Keep up the good work and hopefully your daughter gets well soon.

I hope your daughter makes a full recovery. The bond between a father and his daughter is a strong one so when our daughters fall ill, we feel it too. Take care, God bless 🙏

Michael, your daughter is in my thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.

When Mr Franzese tells you something “you can take it to the bank”. Another great sit down episode.

A lot of this also really illuminates the potential motives for the setup and killing and Sam Cooke. Cooke was trying to form his own talent agency and label and poach a lot of major black artists, from a lot of these greedy and powerful individuals.

Michael mentioned Neil Bogart who later had his own label, Casablanca records, which was huge during the 70's and the disco era. His biggest artist at the time was Donna Summer. Not his only big artist. Like I said, Casablanca was HUGE during that era, probably the biggest label after Motown. As Michael said, Neil grew up in Brooklyn and my father (a wiseguy too and I can say that now because he passed away), but he was quite friendly with Neil and making money with him as well. He was friendly with Michael's dad too. Anyway one day my father had to take a ride with Neil over some kind of business venture, I'm not sure what, but my mother had a full day planned (shopping etc.) so she asked my father if he could take me with him that day and he said sure, not a problem at all. Now I'm too young to fully grasp who Neil is in terms of his strength in the music business at the time, but I knew he was in the business and had his own record label etc. So we're driving from one borough to another, pretty long ride with the traffic, and Neil has this demo his label recorded with Donna Summer, more towards the beginning of her career than when she really BLEW UP and became the Queen of Disco, but it turns out this demo Neil had was the one that was really going to make her a household name and set her on the course towards becoming as huge as she did. To be clear, she had no idea Neil was mobbed up and she had nothing to do with that herself. She was just a singer and all she knew was she was getting her big break to record with a major producer on a major label. It was when she was working with the famous record producer, Giorgio Moroder. So Neil tells me I'm gonna put this demo on for you and I want you to give me your honest opinion. He was serious because I was a kid and young people are the ones who really buy the records and decide which artists make it big or not, so NOBODY had heard this thing yet and he was curious to get my opinion. So he puts this demo on and it knocked me out. It was different than anything I had ever heard at the time, but I knew it was gonna change the game. A few months later I start hearing these songs on the radio, INSTANTLY remembered hearing them in Neil's car that day, and she just blew up and changed the game as I predicted, which didn't take a genius. Everyone who heard it for the first time had the same reaction, I just happened to hear it before everyone else. BTW Mike, great channel.

If you have any more stories on Marvin Gaye I am sure many of us would love to hear them

That start😂😂😂😂 one way to refresh someones memory😂😂😂

Gotta say, I can't get enough of these videos. I poured through all of them in a week and am greatly looking forward to more and more content on here. I hope your daughter gets well soon and wish you and the rest of your family good health as well.

I'm so glad Mr franseze has his own channel, instead of being on that stupid Vlad. I'm a big fan from south Africa.