'Ron Delsener Presents' chronicles legendary concert promoter; Delsener, film's director set for Cinema Arts Centre event

Long Island has a secret archive of rock and roll history. In it, you’ll find roughly 60 years’ worth of artifacts, from the precious to the preposterous: signed photos, backstage passes, certified gold cassettes, a pair of 3D glasses from Kiss’ Psycho Circus tour. Hanging from a hook is a pink feather boa belonging to — well, surely someone fabulous.

It's all in the basement of the East Hampton home that Ron Delsener, the legendary concert promoter, has lived in part time for decades. You’ll see glimpses of it in the documentary "Ron Delsener Presents," which arrived in theaters May 30, but that’s probably as close as you’ll ever get to visiting.

"I don’t trust anybody," Delsener, 89, says firmly in a recent telephone interview with Newsday. Whenever the film’s director, Jake Sumner, dropped by to sift through the material, Delsener told him: "Let me check your pants before you leave here."

Named for the slogan stamped on many a New York-area concert poster, "Ron Delsener Presents" traces the rise of one singularly savvy promoter — as such musicians as Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith attest in interviews — but it also chronicles the transformation of the live music business itself, from a loosey-goosey network of instinct-driven individuals to a near-monopolistic handful of profit-driven corporations. Sumner has some familiarity with this world: He’s the son of the English rock star Sting. The filmmaker and his subject will appear in person at a sold-out screening of "Ron Delsener Presents" at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre Saturday at 7 p.m.

Sumner, 40, says he has known Delsener since he was a child, running into him at various New York venues while tagging along on his father’s solo tours. "He always had a great story or a wisecrack," Sumner says. "When you put all Ron's stories together, he kind of has a history of live music in New York City."

Delsener, a musical omnivore from Astoria, Queens — which qualified him for induction in 2014 to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame — grew up listening to jazz and Classical but hitched his wagon to the new sound of rock and roll. One of his earliest accomplishments was to bring The Beatles to Forest Hills Stadium in 1964. (He also famously purchased every item from The Fab Four’s hotel rooms, right down to the cigarette butts, then held an auction.) Delsener would go on to book what must have been thousands of concerts, including David Bowie at Carnegie Hall in 1972, Joel at Yankee Stadium in 1990 and, most famously, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s world-riveting 1981 reunion in Central Park. (The long-feuding singers both appear in the film; a still-bemused Simon recalls how Delsener convinced him the whole thing was his idea.) Delsener also started the Jones Beach concert series more than 40 years ago.

The film also recounts how Frank Barsalona, the powerful booking agent, once held a mob-style meeting of the country’s concert promoters and divided the territories between them — no poaching or encroaching allowed. "Everybody knew their place, so there was no fighting," Delsener says almost wistfully today. In 1996, after more than 30 years as the king of New York concerts, Delsener sold his company to SFX, the entertainment conglomerate that eventually gave rise to Live Nation. Even then, he kept going for another three decades until retiring in 2022.

In their interview with Newsday, Delsener sounded energetic, upbeat and still fond of slightly off-color jokes, while Sumner often jogged his friend’s memory and steered his narratives back on track. "It’s a good thing, I think, we made it when we did," Sumner says of the film. "A lot's changed for Ron in this time period. For me, this is a piece of New York history, and I feel honored to have been part of telling this story."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com