My Crazy Night With Eddie Money

I'm so bummed that Eddie Money has passed away today at the age of 70. From pretty humble beginnings as a New York police officer to a huge star in the 80's to a reality TV star "The Money Man" lived a life worth living.

I'm grateful for the several times I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Eddie through my years in radio. He was kind, and funny and pretty crazy. One story sticks out in my mind and here it is.

Back in the early 90's I was a brand new, wet behind the ears radio promotions assistant at a radio station in Cincinnati. I had been in radio for all of about 2 months. Our station was putting on a concert down on the Ohio River and Eddie Money was our headliner. My job was to hang out with Eddie Money all night, get him anything he needed and make sure he got to the stage when it was time for him to perform.

Most of the night Eddie, his manager and I are hanging out near the backstage bar. He's laughing, telling stories and throwing back drinks like it was an open bar at your cousin's wedding. Eddie's manager was wearing this brand new Hard Rock Cafe leather jacket (remember how cool Hard Rock stuff was in the 90's?). All night Eddie was asking his manager over and over again if he could wear that jacket on-stage. He even offered to pay him for it, but his manager said no over and over again. Finally, Eddie Money said, "I'm not going on stage without that bad ass jacket." and the manager took it off, handed it to him, looked him in the eyes and said, "Take good care of it!"

Eddie Money takes the stage and rocks! He's running around, singing his hits and having a great show. The last song of the night was "Two Tickets to Paradise". Just as the band is playing the final notes of the song he strips off the Hard Rock jacket, swings it over his head and throws it out into the crowd.

Eddie's manager just starts screaming about his jacket. Eddie comes off stage and his manager is all in his face screaming, "You threw my jacket into the crowd! My new jacket is gone! I told you to take care of it! Why did you do that?"

Eddie Money turns to me with a smirk on his face, turns back to his manager and exclaims, "That's f@ckin" Rock and Roll Baby!" and then he just walked away.

That was the Eddie Money that I will remember.