Today’s posting is from my friend and next door neighbor, Freddie Colon. Freddie is the father and former manager of singer, dancer, actor and song writer, Colby O’Donis. Today, he will be telling you what it was like in the early years of Colby’s career.
Hi, I’m Freddie Colon, Colby O’Donis’ father and former manager. Early in my son’s career, when he was really young, I needed to get things moving for him but didn’t really know how. I mean, I was like a bull in a china shop. Yeah, I was really green—no experience in the music game back then in 2000.
At ten years old, Colby had just been signed by Motown Records but no one knew what to do with a ten year old prodigy, least of all me. OK, look. I knew I had to get him gigs, you know, get him out in front of the public. But how?
Turned out my neighbor, Doug Dillon, had connections that made all the difference. That guy gifted us with a list of school contacts. Now this was no ordinary list. He gave us the name and phone number for all the schools in Central Florida including the go to people who were in charge of events and festivals.
As Colby’s father, I can tell you Doug’s list was a true blessing. That is what actually jump started my son’s career.
From then on, I was in business. I put together a thousand packages with Colby’s bio, CD and proof that he was signed to Motown records to do the “Mouse in the House” sound track for the Stuart Little movie. Now keep in mind that Stuart Little was a hot movie at the time and Colby was the poster child for the movie in Central Florida.
Within two months, Colby was booked to do over thirty shows in this part of Florida. In fact, he was doing so many shows that Johnny Wright, the manager at that time of the Back Street Boys, NSYNC, and Britney Spears got interested. Johnny put Colby on ABC’s news program 20/20 with his other group, the Triple Image girls. That’s how all the big shows like House of Blues, Hard Rock and Roxy wanted Colby to perform at their clubs as well.
This was the opportunity we desperately needed. Why? Because Motown Records noticed that
the majority of Stuart Little soundtracks were being sold in Central Florida. So they started to help book Colby into bigger venues.
The result? Motown got Colby to open for some of the biggest names of that time like Britney Spears, NSYNC, 98 Degrees, and NEYO. The list read like the Who’s Who in the Music World and Colby’s career started to take off like it had a mind of its own.
That’s it for now. I’ll pick up the story from there in the next blog. Click here to see Colby’s CDs.
Thanks, Freddie. Great story.
To see Freddy’s final post on Colby, click here.
To see my initial post on Freddie and Colby, click here.
