Recently, I was doing some photo research with an art director friend and she came across The Fat Boys in my files. At almost the same time, in another room, I came across an article on “Slate.com” about them! It was titled: Why the Fat Boys still matter.
It reminded me of another time and place! My friend Dawn Bridges, one of the great publicists in music business history, was working for Charlie Stettler, a Swiss born promoter in NYC, who had made his first fortune by dangling a microphome out his kitchen window and recording New York street sounds and selling cassettes of them. She was doing publicity for his first band management project, a band called the Fat Boys, and wanted to know if I wanted to come to NYC and take some pictures for the cover of their next album, called Crushin. She was going to rent a photo studio, and the band was going to pose with a rented boa constrictor (Crushing- get it??). The day of the shoot, the owner of the snake arrived with the snake rolled up in a suitcase (He took the subway). He unrolled the snake and placed it across the shoulders of the guys, who freaked out. The snake was asleep, but weighed about 75 pounds.. As soon as it woke up, and moved, the shoot was over. But I worked fast, and got want was needed.
A couple of years later, Dawn asked me to come to NYC and spend an afternoon with the Boys. At that point, they were already huge stars, and walking through Harlem was quite the experience!
That was the last time I hung with them. Their first album is being released as a reissue this week, packed in a working pizza box. A very fitting tribute to a great group of guys.