Henry Stone Talks Joe Galkin: “I Got Him a Job in Atlanta, He Discovered Otis Redding”

“Joe Galkin. He discovered Otis Redding. I used to work for him in New York when I was a kid, 15 or 16 years old. I kept in touch with him through the years, and then one day I was on 47th street with Tone Distributing and he came down to me and said, “I wanna get out of New York and move to Miami, can you get me a job?”

I said, “I don’t know what you could to promote down here, I do all the promoting down here Joe,” yknow, cause he was a promotion man, and a hustler, I sez, “I’ll tell ya what…I just spoke to Gwen Kessler in Atlanta and they need a promotion man, let me call her up.”

I called her up and got him a job with Gwen Kessler and they became real tight. In fact, he became her like father practically yknow, and he took real good care of her, and while he was there in Atlanta, he found Otis Redding. He worked for Atlantic Records up there, and when he passed away he left everything to Gwen Kessler.”