While They Dance

BRAD!

BRAD - The Day Brings - August 17th, 2002, live outside Tower Records in Seattle. Stone Gossard, Regan Hagar, Mike Berg, @jeremytoback, and the late, great Shawn Smith.

• Chris Cornell of Soundgarden with Pearl Jam's longtime manager Kelly Curtis •
• During Pearl Jam's show at RKCNDY Seattle •
• August 1991 •
By his 20s Kelly Curtis was touring and serving as a roadie for Heart. It was while working at a Seattle events company that Curtis began managing Mother Love Bone in the summer of 1988.

Fronted by lead singer Andrew Wood, the group also featured guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, who had recently exited Green River. When major labels began sniffing around, Ament turned to Curtis, whom he casually knew, for advice.

With Curtis' guidance, Mother Love Bone signed with PolyGram and finished its debut album, “Apple,” by the end of 1989. But on March 19th, 1990, Wood died of a drug overdose, less than a month shy of the album’s intended release.

Emerging from the demise of Mother Love Bone, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Jeff Ament formed Pearl Jam with an unknown singer who relocated from San Diego named Eddie Vedder. Meanwhile, having befriended lawyer Michele Anthony and PolyGram A&R man Michael Goldstone during the Mother Love Bone days, Curtis signed Pearl Jam to Epic Records after Anthony and Goldstone both wound up taking jobs there.

Curtis, who rarely gives interviews and has been known to take pride in the lack of photos of himself circulating online, deftly guided the strategy behind the scenes, helping Pearl Jam manage its explosive mainstream breakthrough without compromising its members ideals or sanity.

Beyond Pearl Jam, Curtis also worked with Alice In Chains early in its career, Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson and Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.

Curtis retired from managerial duties in August 2020.

Photo by Lance Mercer