Sun Ra: Memories from Jim Eigo, and Ra's LP Business

Guest Post by Jim Eigo

From Lewis: Jim Eigo has been in the record business in New York all his life. I used to order hard-to-get import LPs from him in the early 1980s. Since 2006, he has been a leading jazz publicist. He also runs an LP shop in Warwick, New York. Jim has had many experiences through the years with jazz artists. Here he shares some of his memories of Sun Ra:

Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra

by Jim Eigo

I believe it was in 1972 that Ra and His Arkestra were booked at the Five Spot for Halloween week. This was the band with all the dancers, percussionists, and saxophonist John Gilmore too. The group had been to Egypt in December 1971, and they had film of the band on camels riding around the pyramids that was being shown during the performance.  A real multi-media experience.  Add in the Ra costumes and the fact that it was Halloween, and this made for one of the spookiest Ra shows I’ve ever attended.

Ra was wailing on the electric keyboards and started chanting "Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra, Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra, Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra," over and over.  He walked through the club chanting "Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra." He spotted a young white couple who were obviously on a date. Ra wrapped them in his cape,  the band going nuts, percussionists  wailing, the dancers and singers parading through the club. Ra was now chanting "Give Up Your Death For Sun Ra" to this couple, who were in total shock.

I'm glad I was there to catch it!

Back in the 1970s, the great Ra would come to my Brooklyn warehouse (where I stored LPs for my mail order business) to drop off  LPs on his own label, El Saturn. Each one had an individually hand-drawn cover (many of which are now collected in a book).

He would sometimes do these while sitting in his car parked on the street by my warehouse.  Sitting in the back seat, Ra did the covers with different colored magic markers while others with him did the labels and stuffed the LPs into the jacket sleeves. And we’re not talking about just one or two LP covers, but hundreds!

Here are some of the unique covers made by hand, which are now treasured by collectors. Over the years, other artists worked on the covers, but these six are probably by Ra himself. Notice that the first two in the bottom row are for the same album!

One time he dropped off his business card:

The names that Ra wrote on the bottom are Spencer Weston, the band's road manager, and Steve Williams. These were the guys who would contact me when there was a new release. They would call you and ask how many you wanted to keep in stock. It could be a month or more later that they actually showed up.

I remember one time they came in on a sweltering, oppressive, N.Y.C. August afternoon. There was no A/C in the car and Ra was wearing a wool dashiki and skull cap, and there was not a drop of sweat on him.

He truly was other-worldly.

When I managed The Jazz Composers Orchestra Association's New Music Distribution Service, Ra released a recording on the Swiss Hat Hut label.  This would have been in 1981. He and his "RAntourage" (my term) came to the offices, supposedly to "discuss" promotion of the album. But it quickly devolved into a stream-of-consciousness hour-long rant from Ra on how he was ripped off by George Lukas, because the Star Wars idea was originally his.

Many years back, I was in Philly to visit family, so I made a side trip out to the Germantown neighborhood, where Ra had a house since 1968 at 5626 Morton Street. I snapped this pic of the front door:

Space Is The Place.

Jim Eigo

[Subscriber Greg Packham adds: “I too was at the Five Spot during those shows. We used to go next door to the Chinese restaurant and get egg rolls to smuggle back in. I was chewing on one when Sun Ra came up to me and asked ‘Would you give up your death for me?’ I nodded and kept chewing."

Thanks Greg—and Big Thanks to Jim!

All the best,
Lewis]