This part of the Cherry Hills neighborhood is quiet, full of mature trees and maturing families, a stone's throw from the bustle of University Boulevard but a light year removed from its fumes and screeches. It is hard, sometimes, to actually see the homes in this area-- they are tucked away, down long driveways and behind fruit orchards, disguised by fences and spreading silver maples. These are some of Denver's most prestigious residences; modern palaces fit for whatever extravagance the latest dot.com Wazir has in mind, but without the nearly unavoidable sameness so prevalent south of Hampden.

Behind one of these facades of hardwood and juniper, exhausted by another long day at the office, Barry Fey, the once and future king of the local concert market and current head of the House of Blues' concert division, walks the halls of rock-and-roll.

"We've been here thirty and one half years in January," Fey said, glancing around the spacious living room. "We got here in mid-January, 1971."

Thirty years in one house. That's pretty good for a postman from Altoona, or a meat cutter from Yuma, but it's positively amazing for a man whose name, since the late 1960s, has been synonymous with the concert promotion business in Denver and across the nation. Aren't people involved in the rock-and-roll lifestyle supposed to move around a lot, skip between villas on the Riviera and apartments in downtown Manhattan? Aren't they supposed to build 400-room mansions on their 10,000 acre ranches? Rock-and-roll shouldn't have this much stability.

Or should it?

Why not? This is a house with more stories than Fey himself, a house that has seen visits from three generations of rock stars, a house where the high school parties thrown by Fey's sons grew their own legend. The walls are covered with rock art-- drip paintings of Fey, his son and Jimi Hendrix by Denny Dent, a mural by LeRoy Neiman, an Andy Warhol portrait of Mick Jagger. The sense of time is almost palpable, despite the modern décor and shiny fixtures. The fast-lane life that made its owner a famous man fairly bubbles up from the sinks.

Its scent is everywhere, from the gold and platinum records on the wall to the signed photographs to the yellowing flyers from the psychedelic era. This is a rock house, placed incongruously in ritzy south Denver. The life contained herein embodies the reality known by four decades of American teenagers. Their hopes, dreams and graven idols are all here-- the stacks of old, perfect vinyl, some of it still in its wrapping, an antique jukebox full of Doo-Wop, the guitars. The guitars.

Signed guitars on nearly every wall. One from Neil Diamond here, one from Bruce Springsteen there, one from Crosby, Stills and Nash right next to one from Young. Why didn't the four of them all just sign the same one?

"He (Young) wouldn't sign the same one that they did," Fey said. "Who knows why? He was mad at 'em, then. That was obviously before the reunion."

But here it is, the feud commemorated, history proved. This place is like that. The memory of rock still bounces around these walls, long after the hedonistic early days, long after Disco, long after the latest "revolution." This house is more live-in museum than house.

Just don't tell that to Fey. At age 63, the man whose company, Feyline, almost single-handedly put Denver on the nation's concert map, spends more time working in his upstairs office than he does admiring his collection of memorabilia. There is the distinct feeling, in fact, that some of this memorabilia has escaped the host's memory-- gold records and signed photos litter the floor of his office, hiding amidst piles of horse racing and sports magazines. The only concession that his home office makes to his home life is a spiral staircase built to his 10 year-old son Tyler's downstairs bedroom, so the kid won't have to walk all the way around and up the stairs to have access to Dad.

Work. Rock-and-roll. They don't go together, do they? But the truth is there have always been people at work on rock, and not just the artists. There are people setting up shows, carrying luggage, building sets, arranging times and yelling at agents. There are people who change the light bulbs in the dressing room mirrors, and people who wave flashlights at you as you walk by. There are roadies, lawyers, drivers, stagehands. There are the people who make it all happen with a phone call. There are people who are in charge. And there's Barry Fey.

Barry Fey wasn't always Barry Fey-- well, in the literal sense, sure; but his persona, that of the hard-driving, take-no-prisoners rock promoter who was physically incapable of backing down from any agent or rock star, that wasn't, always. Flash back to the 1950s, when he was a scared, sports-loving kid, only three weeks removed from the sudden death of his father. His search for direction led him to the United States Marine Corps.

It was an experience that would shape him forever, one that still hurts after all of the years. His drill instructors, three of whom would later be thrown in the stockade for brutality, made a point and an example of the 237 lb. teenager by repeatedly beating and humiliating him. One instructor, for instance, would punch him hard in the stomach and ask "How's the drill instructor's left hand today, private?" Fey would be forced to yell back an affirmative response, and then the instructor would give him the right. And so on.

"It was absolutely inhumane what they did to me," Fey said, his face clouding at the memory. "But it served me in good stead. Because I haven't been scared of anybody since."

Fey took some of that military mentality with him into the concert business. The early days of his reign at Feyline were in his own words "a big boot camp." He drove his employees hard, and still does; he demands hard work and unstinting loyalty. He doesn't like to lunch out, preferring to stay in his Greenwood Village offices throughout the midday meal and sometimes longer. Employees who get on his bad side can be witness to his famous temper-- although those in the know say that it is nothing like it used to be. "Back in the late '70s, early '80s, I was crazy," Fey said. "I used to shout and scream. It was never personal. I used to throw shit."

One such incident involved a telephone repairman who happened to be walking by Feyline's offices during one of the boss's moments.

"I threw the phone out the window, and it landed next to a telephone repairman," Fey said. "And so, every day for the next few weeks, he would stop in by the office and see if we needed any phones fixed."

In his own opinion, the gradual loss of his edgy temper became a sign that he was losing some of his passion for the business.

"When I stopped, it was a sign to me that I didn't care as much," Fey said.

The years of promoting, and dealing with acts like the Marshall Tucker Band (who, according to Fey, once shut off the sound on Heart during a Red Rocks show, and whom he describes as "absolutely miserable human beings") made Fey realize he had missed out on some of the truly fine things in life--namely, spending time with his family and taking time for himself. And then, amidst this realization, came a reminder of his own mortality.

"In my late 30s, early 40s, I used to obsess on death," Fey said. "But I actually stopped thinking about it until I got cancer in 1997. It occurred to me, 'Whatever. ' That's all. The most important thing now is my sons, that they grow up and be healthy. That's the only important thing now.

"The only really important thing is to change the environment that you're in."

He retired from the concert business in 1997, beat his disease, and spent a lot of time at his house watching daytime television and ESPN. He spent time with Tyler, put energy into his prize-winning horse Reraise, and stewed.

Because this business, the one he had dominated for so long, was also one of which he could never have imagined himself a part, back in the horrible days of the Corps-- and for that, maybe he wanted to give something back, to fight against an enemy he refers to as "Satan."

It all started in 1966 with some DU fraternities. Fey, then a young man living in Chicago and getting his feet wet by booking local bands, was approached with a proposal to book bands to play frat bashes along the Front Range. He obliged, procured The Association (of "Wendy" fame), and found the first of what would become a string of Colorado successes. In '67, he read an ad in Billboard Magazine that would prove to be serendipitous.

"Family Dog put an ad in Billboard looking for local acts," Fey said. "I went out there with a tape of a band called the Eighth Penny Matter. My wife and I went up, the weekend before Monterey (Pop Festival, where Hendrix burned his guitar). We saw Haight Street, the Golden Gate, the diggers were out giving out free food. I went home the next weekend and played "San Francisco," by Scott McKenzie for eight hours straight."

The young Fey met and connected with Chet Helms, the head of Family Dog productions in San Francisco, and upon his return to Denver, found himself in a position to buy the Byrd, a club that had recently closed down. He did so, and pitched Helms the idea of making his new club a puppy in the Family Dog litter. Helms agreed and, of a sudden, Fey was in business.

But the key, as Fey sees it, is chance.

"People want to say that I did this, or I planned this, but I didn't plan shit," Fey said. "Man, it's all about being in the right place at the right time. Acouple of times, I've been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"When you tell people how lucky you are, they think you're being modest. I'm not being modest. It's true."

Over the course of the next three decades, Barry Fey would change the face of the Denver concert scene completely. The majority of acts that had previously come to the area were square squared-- "Bands like Paul Revere and the Raiders and Sonny and Cher" and not likely to compete with The Doors and The Grateful Dead. He brought the Rolling Stones to Fort Collins for one of his first big coups-- an experience that would serve his burgeoning business well.

"The most important, professionally, were probably the Stones," Fey said. "My first date with them was November 6, 1969. And it wasn't even supposed to be a date. The tour was supposed to start in L. A, but they wanted to do a place that the press wouldn't be at, so they chose Fort Collins, on the CSU campus in Moby Gym. I remember they made t-shirts that said 'Fort What? '

The concert was enough of a success to earn Fey, two years later, a late night call from one of the Stones' handlers asking him if he wanted to promote the '72 tour.

"Of course not. Why would I be interested in that?" Fey deadpanned. "When you take a band like the Stones, and do 17 of their western dates, that put me professionally-- not that that was the most important, because of the first time we made Rolling Stone and everything like that, but they were probably the most important to me professionally."

Over the years, Fey developed relationships with many of rock's leading lights-- Keith Moon did eat his centerpiece one Thanksgiving, it is true (" although he was really nice about it," according to Fey) and Ronnie Van Zant used to call him up to shoot the breeze.

"He'd call every once in a while, 'Hey, Barry, what's up, man'... he was so misunderstood. All he wanted to do was drink beer, fish and watch the Dodgers. What a great guy."

But none of them ever grew as close to his heart as one little Irish band.

"U2. I truly love them. I don't want to go into some of the things they've done for me, especially when I was ill in New York, but they've meant the most to me, personally."

Bono seconded that emotion in a poem he wrote for Fey following the latter's illness:

A voice louder than any rock n' roll band
A belly (used to be) wider than any stadium
A willy smaller than any singer's ego Hairier than any fuzz box
A heart bigger than a bass drum
A brain bigger than his 'phone book
Lips on loan from E. Humperdinck
Chest on loan from Tom Jones
Moustache on loan from Freddy Mercury
Legs on loan from me (a bad deal)
Diet on loan from Pavarotti
Styling and investment advice courtesy of Caesar's Palace
Happy Birthday-- May you face a chocolate cake the size of Red Rock mountain and
May you decide to climb it.

But even the relationships with rock's leading lights-- Fey counts Metallica among his personal friends, and refers to them almost absentmindedly by their first names-- and the vast cache of wealth and fame that he had accumulated was not enough to satisfy his true urge, his true addiction. What Barry Fey wanted to do more than anything was put on shows where kids could come and jam out. It was his Questing Beast and his albatross, driving him through the high-stress decades and haunting him in his comfortable retirement. He could never be free of rock-and-roll, but moreover, he didn't want to be, and that became clear to him the longer he stayed on the sidelines watching, limited to booking the occasional act in Vegas by the non-compete clause he signed when he got out in '97. And there was, of course, the enemy.

SFX Entertainment, a division of the massive ClearChannel conglomerate. The new lords of booking in Denver and elsewhere, the biggest kids on a block full of big ones. The undisputed heavyweights, to borrow a term from the sports world. Fey prefers the infernal appellation. Their iron-fingered grip on concert markets nationwide was squeezing the life out of the old-time promoters, many of whom had worked with or under Fey. Some, like his old partner Chuck Morris, joined forces with the juggernaut; some just decided to call it quits. In any case, as Fey sees it, the concrete effect of such total control over the business was higher ticket prices and an increased homogeneity of ownership-- the options, and thereby the variety and quality of music, had become increasingly limited nationwide. It was enough, he says, to "shock" him out of retirement, even though the product itself was no longer something he necessarily valued.

"I didn't like the music when I left," he said. "And SFX had just started with their non-competitive bullshit, buying everybody up... but it hurt. It really hurt to see what it had become. SFX just buying up promoters and buying up promoters and buying up tours at two times what they're worth. Then, just to have it all, then you charge $150 tickets, $200 tickets. Jesus Christ, that's ridiculous, $200 tickets." And the problem, he says, is not that artists are growing steadily more greedy.

"I know it came from them (SFX). No band would ever ask anyone to take $200. It just destroys our business."

One of Fey's longtime fellow promoters, Jack Boyle, was bought out by SFX for $100 million. Such enormous amounts of cash are, Fey contends, driving the little guys out of business.

"This is not what this business is supposed to be like. Corporations don't make music, bands do. SFX wants it all, and no one deserves it all, except for me, of course, in the old days. But I was righteous; I fought to keep people out, and I fought hard, but I never did anything like pay..." His voice trailed off. "Jesus."

And now that SFX is on the scene, one of the big challenges for Fey and The House of Blues is to try and undo the damage they have wrought. Even Fey admits that might be a Sisyphan endeavor.

"These bands, they're selling their souls to SFX. I can't do anything about that, now. They're spoiled. They're gonna want that kind of money. But someone's gonna have to take it from 'em, because this is gonna fall over. It's a matter of when. SFX isn't making any money. They're hemorrhaging, ClearChannel's numbers are down. You just can't do that. You can't just buy, buy, buy."

It remains unclear what the influence of one man-- even one so well-connected in the industry as Fey-- can do to halt the inexorable march of banality. By his own admission, it will be difficult to convince artists to take less money, and ClearChannel is the real-life equivalent of James Bond's SPECTRE, ubiquitous and malevolent.

Still if there is one person who wants to try, who needs to try, it is he. This is an affront to his view of the spirit of rock-and-roll. This is a man who doesn't check his e-mail, who demands that his employees return every call personally, who fervently claims to be in the business for the human element. The money is important, but it isn't the only thing-- he sees the death of rock-and-roll, the death of a business and a lifestyle that he made his own. There were a million reasons for Barry Fey to leave retirement and return to a fray that may be unmanageable, to a world unlike the one he left. But the only one that makes any sense to him is altruism. This business was his, and it is his no longer; but what became of it hurts him, like a hippie parent whose son becomes President of Exxon. There is a core in Barry Fey that truly hurts for rock-and-roll, and all of the money in the world won't assuage it.

Sitting in his office, glancing out at the late summer rain, Barry Fey forgot who everyone thinks he is supposed to be.

For a second, the familiar surface gives way. A man who has answered a hundred thousand questions asks two of himself.

"You've done so much, and lived such a good life, why don't you seem happier? And why don't you take anything seriously? Why are you so silly?"

He thinks for a second. And then provides his own answer.

"I've never been able to take things seriously. I mean, come on. That's probably why I've never been able-- I don't have a lot of peers. My age, anyway. A lot younger and a lot older, but people my age, and in my position, whatever it is, don't really understand me. After my first divorce, people were trying to fix me up with ladies, and they didn't understand me. They were like, come on, get serious. And I didn't care about that. I would be silly, and they didn't like that.

"Older people like it and younger people like it... I act 17. I'm irresponsible. I haven't opened my mail in three weeks.

"And why don't I seem happier about everything I've supposedly achieved? I'll be honest with you. I'm not nearly as impressed with myself as others seem to be."

The man of the legendary temper, destroyer of telephones, frightener of agents, icon of Denver culture, is after all, a man first. The sadness-- divorce and separation, the recent death of his mother--of his personal life must, as they do with everyone, compete unendingly with the triumphs. But this is what it is, this is life, and dreams are humanity's ladder. Barry Fey, concerned with rock-and-roll, concerned for his family, concerned that the world thinks more of him than he does of himself, is, in the final offing, still a guy with a dream. And hope.

"No matter what you do for a living, it's your humanity you have to hold on to," Fey said, the last rays of August warming his office. "You're a human being first."

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