Gary James' Interview With The CEO Of Kinkead Entertainment Agency
Bob Kinkead



Bob Kinkead has represented some of the biggest names in show business. We're talking Blood, Sweat And Tears, The Judds, The Oak Ridge Boys, Dwight Yoakam, Ray Stevens, Waylon Jennings, Reba McEntire, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld and the list goes on and on. We spoke with Bob Kinkead about his background as a talent agent.

Q - Bob, this is a tough time to be a booking agent, isn't it? (2020)

A - It is. It's extremely tough. Obviously in my time I've never experienced anything like this. We did go through a pause during 9-11, but it kind of bounced back. Within 120 days concerts started to rebound, but nothing like this. My hope and prayers are that we find a vaccine, people are safe and we can get back to the concert business. We're here for the long haul. Hopefully it won't be much longer, but if it is, it is.

Q - Do you have any idea what the entertainment business will look like once this pandemic ends?

A - Well, my crystal ball is very dusty at this point. I think and I truly believe that the only way to predict the future is to create it. As we always have various hurdles and stumbling blocks, the executives that have been in it for a long time try to find a way to be very creative and adjust while times are tough. With that being said, I think the big concert tours that tour in stadiums and even large arenas will be a little slower to adapt to the new norm. I think the smaller, emerging artists are going to be in a position they've never been in before because they don't have to have a lot of people come to see them, but yet people are still starving for entertainment and there's probably going to be a turnover in this business of various artists and executives. So, only time will tell.

Q - Before 1982, what were you doing? Were you in college?

A - I was in high school.

Q - At one point then, you went to work for Spotlite Enterprises. What was that? A management company? A booking agency?

A - That was a talent agency. My step-uncle and step-father owned the business. They started it I think in '77. So, I was kind of as a kid raised around my step-father being a talent agent and it started in our house. As we were growing up, my parents, my mother and step-father said, "We're gonna make you an agent. That's what's gonna happen." As soon as I graduated from high school in 1982 they sent me to New York City where the office was located in Manhattan on 57th Street. I was an apprentice and within six or seven months I started selling shows. My clients at that time were Richie Havens, Blood, Sweat And Tears, Beatlemania, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Yakov Smirnoff. So, that's where I got my start, right there in Manhattan.

Q - You went directly from high school, no college, into being an agent?

A - That's correct.

Q - As an apprentice at Spotlite, what did you do?

A - Well, there was, three years prior to me actually, officially starting in the business where my step-father was the co-owner of Spotlite. He had an office on Sunset Blvd. What I would do in the summertime is I would come in and type contracts, file papers. I would send mail out. It was a very small agency with maybe, I don't know, fifteen employees. As a part of that, that was my first job. So, for three years I did that. When they moved me to New York City I was under the leadership of Robert S. Williams, my step-uncle, and Chris MacNeil. There were also major agents who came out of that like Steve Levine, who's the head of I.C.M. (International Creative Management). He worked there at one time. There were various leaders, people within the company that would spend time with me and talk about how to make deals and what are the interests of buyers when you talk to them. So that's kind of what I meant by that.

Q - Maybe you can clarify something for me. You worked for William Morris. Did you start off in their mail room, as they once required all new hires to do, or because of your experience did you immediately get to work as an agent?

A - I went in as an agent. When I went into William Morris I was working for a company called Jim Halsey. Jim Halsey was an independent agency in Nashville at the time that represented Reba McEntire, The Oak Ridge Boys, Waylon Jennings. Very prominent booking agency in town. He sold or merged the company into William Morris and there were four of us that made the cut, which was Ron Baird, who later started C.C.A. (Creative Artists Agency) John Head, who later passed away, Terry Klein, who later just quit or resigned, and I was the sole survivor of the company. So, I had thirty to forty clients that I was responsible for. I was a vice-president at Jim Halsey. It just folded into William Morris and I just carried on like I was at Jim Halsey, but just with a different name.

Q - While at Jim Halsey, you helped move along the careers of The Judds and The Oak Ridge Boys?

A - Yes. I was the personal agent for The Oak Ridge Boys for twelve years, but yes, I did the West Coast bookings for The Judds, Reba McEntire, Roy Clark, Mel Tillis. We had a really nice roster.

Q - Those people were established when you were booking them. So, it couldn't have been too difficult to sell them, correct?

A - Well, the job was still... A lot of artists asked for more than they were able to sell in tickets. (laughs) So, there's negotiations there. Our job was to get the best guarantee for our client and still be able to work in harmony with the promoters, to keep them in business. We need them to be in business in order to sell more shows. So, the philosophy was to definitely do your best to make the best deal for everyone that was involved. But yes, it seems easy, but there's a lot of things that go into it that require experienced people not to fall into bad situations.

Q - You do have to be tactful. Not everyone could do your job.

A - Well, I've have had some beatings.

Q - When you were representing Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld, did you help them get on Johnny Carson?

A - In 1982 Jay was just starting to get on David Letterman. At that point he was becoming a regular. There were some opportunities that Johnny Carson wanted to bring him on. They had publicists, managers that handled those type of television bookings. However, because the agency had represented some of the most prominent, emerging comedians at that time we were always involved in some sort of conversations just to keep the artist in play with those talent bookers, talking about their availability, finalizing the deal with the managers. But we were having those conversations.

Q - In your career you've worked for A.P.A. (Agency Of The Performing Arts), Buddy Lee Attractions, Paradigm...

A - I opened A.P.A.'s office in 1994 in Nashville.

Q - You worked for William Morris, Jim Halsey, Spotlite. And then you started your own agency. What can you do with your own agency that you couldn't do with those other agencies?

A - It's doing it the way I want to do it. (laughs) The greatest thing that probably happened to me, working with all these agencies, is One: Working with teams. Working with great people. Within all these agencies, all of these agencies gave me a great opportunity. I have friends that are still working at most of these agencies, but it just got to a point where it was my time. It was my time to do it. I didn't really want to be in a corporate structure. I felt like when I left William Morris to start A.P.A. I wanted it to be a boutique agency, but corporate companies want to be big. They want to sign as many acts as they can. And so, after my fifth year with Paradigm I felt that it was just time for me to move on and do my own thing and take a chance and so be it.

Q - How many employees do you have?

A - There are six of us in the office.

Q - Your bread and butter is what? Comedians and Country?

A - Comedy. Country. We have a few Pop acts. We have some actual actresses. We're a SAG and AFTRA agency as well. So, we're building that division. Hey, if we can book it and sell it, then we're going to represent you. After my years of being in the business I have a lot of relationships. Our data base of talent buyers is right around 9,000 people and it's very active. We probably send out 70,000 to 80,000 e-mails a month just advertising our clients. We do things a lot different than most talent agencies. Matter of fact, we still do ticket counts. We do status reports. We don't act as managers, but we have manager responsibilities. We make it very easy for our clients and managers to do their day to day business. And so, taking all these agencies and learning from them, I've turned it into something that's different than most.

Q - You're a mangent, a combination of a manager and an agent then.

A - (laughs) Well, most of my clients don't have managers. So, I give them managerial advice, but we don't act as managers. We truly only act as agents. We only charge a 10% commission. Some acts find that very beneficial because we give them all the options and tell them straight up what the situation is. We don't sugar coat it and that's the way we work. So, I think the kind of service they get from the status reports, which is every Tuesday where their contracts set, their deposits set to ticket counts of where their shows are. Obviously it changed in March (2020) where we were hit with COVID, coronavirus. We had seventy-three shows left between now (September 22nd 2020) and December 31st, 2020. My guess is that 70% of them will go away, but we're still in business full-time. I have a full-time staff. I haven't cut their pay. I own my own building where everybody comes in and works. I've got a sound stage in the back room that I'm shooting streams now. I'm making deals for that. I'm just adapting like everyone else in this business, trying to make sure that our clients get the highest level of representation. I'm a survivor. I truly believe last man standing wins this game.

Official Website: www.KinkeadEntertainment.com

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