bring the guy with him.
“I said great and then I’d charge
them about 60% more for the
rate. They’d say what’s this? I said,
that’s for the guy you didn’t want
me to bring.”
Although he had plenty of success as a teenage promoter, everything almost came crashing to
a halt on the day John F. Kennedy
was assassinated. Seldin had sunk
all of his money into Johnny Thunder, his first national act who was
in the Top 10 of the charts at the
time with ”Loop De Loop”.
The show was scheduled for Friday, November 22, 1963. By the
early afternoon, word was out everywhere that the President had
New Jersey Stage
been shot. The phone started
ringing non-stop with people cursing Norman out, telling him he
had to cancel the show.
Unfortunately, not only did he
sink all of his money into the
show, but he booked six additional acts. Rescheduling would have
been a nightmare - especially on
such short notice, so the show
went on and about 350 people
came out. Seldin says that many
of the attendees said things were
so bad that they needed an outlet
that night.
He acquired his nickname as a
teenager as well. When he was
about 15 or 16, he began hanging around the racetrack at Mon-
August 2014
pg 50