Legendary Bakersfield concert promoter Danny Lipco dies
| Sunday, Jan 15 2012 07:38 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Jan 17 2012 07:16 AM
Entertainment impresario Danny Lipco, who dedicated his entire career to bringing legendary entertainers like B.B. King, Merle Haggard and the Pixies to Bakersfield stages, died Saturday night at San Joaquin Community Hospital after a brief illness. He was 59.
“He’s done concerts everywhere, from parking lots to the Western Stockman’s Market, and it piggybacked and grew, and he learned the ins and outs and ups and downs of it,” said Lipco’s brother, Marc, in a phone conversation Sunday. “I wish we could have done this article when he was living. He would have loved the accolades, but he wouldn’t have shown it. He would have read it and realized the hard work was not in vain.”
The first glimmers of Lipco’s business acumen were evident when he was a young retailer at Emporium Western Store, where his hustle and drive would one day yield him part ownership of the store. Then, in the mid-1990s, he took over Vallitix and expanded the reach of the ticketing agency from mostly local concerts to shows around the state. His most recent success came at the Fox Theater, which he had been leasing and operating since 2009.
“He brought a stability to the Fox we didn’t have before,” said Scott Fieber, a board member of the nonprofit Fox Foundation, which owns the theater.
Until Lipco and his company aVenueTek assumed booking and operational duties at the Fox, the 12-member foundation board oversaw the entertainment venue, but success was spotty. In fact, some months it was a struggle to pay the mortgage and PG&E, Fieber said.
But that changed when Lipco came on board. Under his lease agreement with the Fox, Lipco paid monthly rent to the tune of $5,000, which, when added to the rent from other tenants in the Fox complex, gave the foundation breathing room on its $6,000-a-month mortgage payment. Ceding control of booking to an outside operator also has allowed the foundation to pursue its primary mission of restoring the building, which opened in 1930.
The foundation has scheduled an emergency meeting for today, though it’s Lipco’s family and not the business arrangement that is upper-most in the minds of board members.
“As the foundation president and coming from the entertainment business, Danny has left us a great blueprint on how to do it right,” said Rick Davis. “Danny has shown us the potential of the building.”
And it’s a lesson worth duplicating: Lipco was on a hot streak during his tenure at the Fox. Consider the caliber of performers booked into the Fox in 2011 alone, a year that rarely saw a dark weekend at the H Street venue: Sheryl Crow, My Chemical Romance, the Monkees, Merle Haggard and B.B. King. It’s an enviable record unmatched by any other venue in the city during the same time period.
But Lipco’s association with the Fox goes much farther back than the last couple of years, all the way to the early 1990s, when the foundation and countless community volunteers worked to salvage the dirty, run-down theater after years of disuse. The foundation, looking to fill seats, was eager to work with Lipco and his concert promoting business, DBL Entertainment.
“He was an adviser from Day One,” said Fieber. “He’s been with us continually through bad times and good times. He was not just a concert promoter but a friend and a donor to the project as well. “He put on shows when we first opened in an unproven building that had been closed for years.”
Though it’s too soon for Lipco’s family and associates to predict what will become of his three separate businesses — Vallitix, DBL Entertainment and aVenueTek, which operates the Fox — everyone interviewed for this report said that he leaves a strong staff to carry on his vision.
Kelsey Barrie was hired out of college by Lipco two and a half years ago to help manage operations at the Fox. She was still in shock when reached by phone Sunday, but plans to be in the office today.
“It’s going to be hard, but I know that it’s what Danny would want,” Barrie said. “Danny’s always business as usual. ‘On to the next one’ — he always said that.
“Danny taught me so much, and I owe him so much. It’s hard to describe how much he’s done for me.”
Lipco, a Foothill High graduate who skipped college, got his start in the entertainment industry in an unlikely place: the Emporium Western Store. On Sunday, the marquee outside the 19th Street retailer read: “Happy Trails Danny With Love.”
“It’s a shock,” said Emporium owner Stephen Goldwater of Lipco’s passing. “I’ve known him since he was a kid.”
Goldwater’s sister and business partner Carol Durst recalled Lipco starting out in 1973 as Christmas help, “and he just stayed.”
Marc Lipco called his brother’s time at the store “an integral part of his life and a foundation of what he is.” A large part of Lipco’s success can be traced to his early mentor, the late Al Goldwater, who owned the store at the time.
“He needed a job, and it was the timing and the times,” Marc Lipco said. “He had a pulse. He knew that people liked him. He was a private person, but he knew so many cowboys and ranchers. I’m his little brother and I resemble him quite a bit, and people would come up to me all the time and say, ‘Hey, Danny.’ They really respected him.”
Durst credited Lipco with helping the business make a necessary leap forward.
“Danny helped us get the store moved from the original location around the corner in the ’80s. Those were the big ‘Urban Cowboy’ days, and we were right in the middle of it.”
Lipco’s creative instincts began to emerge while he developed marketing and promotional campaigns for the store, including parking lot concerts to coincide with the Kern County Fair rodeo. Lipco became a minority partner with Emporium in 1988, where he remained another 12 years before leaving to further expand the Vallitix brand.
“He was creative, positive and innovative,” said Goldwater, pointing to a photo of Lipco posing with country duo the Bellamy Brothers. “He got his concert business start here. He would work out of the office upstairs. We had people sleeping outside the night before an onsale before the Internet.”
Josey Hernandez, a 12-year Vallitix employee who went to work for Lipco when she was 17, said her boss had been ailing since about mid-October.
“He just had a lot of different health issues and they all came up at once,” she said. “He was sick and not feeling well, and the past few weeks he got worse, but not enough for us to get worried. We didn’t expect this. Danny was always working. He never took a day off in his life.”
The subject of Lipco’s work ethic comes up again and again in conversations with friends, family and associates.
“It’s not easy to stay in business that long and grind it out,” Marc Lipco said. “His kids will know how hard he worked. It’s not one concert; he’s done hundreds or thousands, and they’ve all been successes.”
Though he worked 14-hour days, his brother said Lipco always put his three young daughters and wife, Lillian, first. He liked to unwind with a good meal and a nice glass of wine, though he abstained from alcohol in recent years.
But one memory of Lipco in particular stands out for his brother, because it involved a rare moment of surprise. The occasion was Lipco’s birthday a couple of years ago, and his brother and some accomplices schemed to catch the always-on-top-of-things businessman unaware by getting him a star on the Fox Theater’s Walk of Stars.
“He was just completely floored. He was in awe. I wanted to get this done for him. I could never get him anything for a present, and I’m the same way. I said, ‘Here’s a birthday present for you.’ A lot of friends came out for it, and he was awestruck.
“He just really, truly appreciated it. It meant something to him. He wasn’t an emotional person, but he was emotional that day.”
Lipco is survived by his wife, Lillian, three young daughters and three siblings. Funeral arrangements had not been completed as of Sunday evening.
Staff writer Matt Munoz contributed to this report.
