Jim Long was the smartest business person I’ve ever known. He likely had a genius IQ, and could see the essence of anything and everything. His brilliance would take your breath away.
Virtually all of us who knew him well would tell you that. Not only was he highly intelligent and incredibly intuitive, he was also very caring and generous in sharing his time, his wisdom, and his mentorship.
I met Jim on Tuesday, March 29, 1988. I had just moved to Los Angeles the day before to become the General Manager of L.A. Studios, the top audio post production studio on the West Coast. The receptionist called to tell me that “Some guy from a production music library is on line one, and he wants to sell us his music library.”
I picked up line one and heard, “Mike, this is Jim Long from First Com. Why isn’t the preeminent production studio in town using our library?”
“Did you record any of that library in our music studio?” I replied.
“No, I don’t think we did, but maybe we should. How about dinner tomorrow night, and we can discuss it?”
Honestly, I felt like I was out of my depth during that dinner. I was mesmerized with Jim’s booming radio announcer’s voice and obvious intelligence. He could seemingly see right through lead-lined walls to find the root cause of any business problem, and offer a brilliant solution in an instant. I’m talking split seconds!
He became a life-long friend, mentor, and confidant. TAXI would not exist without Jim Long. Here’s why…
I gave him two business plans to read and review in late 1991. One was for an indoor golf simulator business, and the other was for TAXI. He asked me to remain at his gorgeous home in Del Mar, California, while he pored over them for nearly three hours. When he finished, he walked back into the room, dropped the plan for TAXI on a table, and smacked his hand down on the 57-page document and said, “There’s your million-dollar idea.”
I would have pursued the indoor golf business had Jim not picked TAXI as the better idea. I trusted his instincts so much that I went with the “independent A&R company” and scrapped the golf simulator business. Jim Long changed the course of my life. In doing so, he also changed the lives of countless musicians who have become successful using TAXI during the last 30 years.
Jim and I shared many lunches over the years at Hugo’s in Malibu. They always lasted three hours or more. Even as he battled Parkinson’s disease later in life, every word that left his lips was pure gold. I always tried to listen more and talk less when I was with Jim. That can be difficult for me, but not when I was in the presence of the smartest man I knew.
He would always ask me how my wife Debra was, and how my marriage was going. That always led to him talking about his wife Deborah and his mom. His eyes twinkled and his face lit up whenever he spoke about them. I have little doubt that his love and tremendous respect for those two women influenced his trend-setting pattern of hiring women for senior positions at several of his companies.
Speaking of his companies… you’d be well-served by reading Jim’s obituary to learn more about them. It details his long list of accomplishments, and lists the companies he founded or co-founded. It’s extremely impressive.
Jim and I shared a passion for great marketing books, great copywriting, great headlines, and innovation in all its forms. He had a profound influence on my life, and the lives of many other people in our industry. We were all blessed to know him, and I will deeply miss his “radio” voice, his incredible wisdom, and his ever-twinkling eyes.