Ep. 8 Terri Williams (Tower Advertising)

2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

Terri Williams started working at Tower owned Central Valley Record Racks in 1975 at 15 years old. In 1978 when she talked about going to College, Russ Solomon told her “Stick with us, kid. I’ll make you a star!” Terri was hired by Chris Hopson in the newly formed Tower Advertising Department. For the next 32 years she helped Chris Hopson and Tower Records establish a first rate Advertising Department.

In 1982 Terri became the New York City Regional Marketing Manager, working to help establish Tower 4th & Broadway a full year before the store opened. Terri then went on to open up the whole Eastern corridor (Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC and many more New York City stores). Following Terri’s work on the East Coast she was promoted to National Marketing Manager and then Vice President of Marketing.

On this episode of “2500 DelMonte Street, Terri reminisces about the early days of CVRR, explains for everyone exactly what CO-OP advertising is and how it worked at Tower, talks extensively about the work that went into getting the New York market up and running, living in Russ Solomon’s NYC condo, the Store Opening party for 4th & Broadway and Andy Warhol’s appearance there, the Talking Heads in-store for “Speaking In Tongues” featuring David Byrne and pop artist Robert Rauschenberg (and the Tower ad he designed for the event), another view of the Donald Trump story from the Trump Tower store, working with Rock The Vote, the reopening of Tower Lincoln Center with Elton John, Rudy Giuliani and Placido Domingo and insights working alongside Chris Hopson and Russ Solomon. Terri also talks about how Tower Records “Dancing Christmas Trees” was the last commercial project that the upstart Pixar Studios did before branching out into movies.

We finish our conversation with Terri discussing her departing Tower Records in 2002 and why she didn’t make it into the film “All Things Must Pass”.