Mitzi Stone estimates she has attended at least 700 performances at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay since 1988. But that number represents less than a quarter of the 3,000 performances in which she has quietly played a key role as Humphreys’ spotlight-shunning promotions director.
Stone’s impending retirement marks the end of an era for the quintessential San Diego venue, which concluded its 69-show 2023 season — Stone’s 36th at the venue — with a Wednesday concert by Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox.
“Mitzi is a part of the history of Humphreys and she is one of its foundations,” said Goldenvoice/AEG Senior Vice President of Talent John Wojas, who has booked the series since 2007.
“She was the ace in Humphreys’ deck of cards,” agreed Goldenvoice Director of Marketing Lesley Lizcano Russe.
“We worked side by side for 36 years and I don’t think anybody could do that job better than Mitzi,” said Humphreys Vice President Bobbi Brieske. “She’s incredibly good with details, extremely organized and a great colleague in so many ways. I hate the fact she’s leaving but love that she’s starting a whole new part of her life. I’m thrilled for her.”
While Brieske and others praise Stone for the exemplary job she’s done, it is might be more accurate to say jobs.
“Many concertgoers never knew the importance of what Mitzi did,” Russe said. “From handling contracts, Humphreys’ website and (concert) photographers to working with managers and agents, she did it all — behind the scenes — for every concert. Her hard work was invaluable.”
Humphreys owner Richard Bartell offered a pithy summation. “Mitzi has been a Rock of Gibraltar for us for 36 years,” he said.
It’s a matter of record that Stone’s broad range of skills have served her and the venue exceedingly well. But the Florida native credits her success to a single factor.
“I love my job!” Stone said. “There has never been a day, in all of my years at Humphreys, that I haven’t loved my job.”
“And,” she added with a laugh, “I’m very good at organizing things — almost to a fault.”
Ringo Starr, who has performed multiple times at Humphreys over the past several decades, received a commemorative plaque from the venue’s staff prior to his sold-out 2018 performance there. From left: Chris Biele, Mitzi Stone, Bobbi Brieske, Starr and Tim Mercer.
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‘She’s incredible’
A lifelong music devotee, Stone briefly played piano as a child. Her father was a big fan of country music who constantly played records by Hank Williams, Tammy Wynette and Little Jimmy Dickens. She married at 20 and moved to San Diego with her first husband, who served here in the U.S. Navy.
Stone was new to the music industry when she was hired at Humphreys, but not to the business world. Her previous jobs had ranged from a four-year stint as an administrative assistant to San Diego real estate developer Tawfiq N. Khoury to a longtime gig at an accounting firm here.
She went to Humphreys for a job interview in 1988. Stone has rarely looked back in the intervening decades, instead focusing on details for the next show, the next season, the next opportunity to ensure everything continues to run smoothly. But she happily revisited her tenure at Humphreys for this interview, even providing a list of her all-time favorite performances (which appears below).
Stone’s employment at the venue came about because Kenny Weissberg — who expertly produced the concert series from 1984 until he retired in 2006 — needed an assistant. Stone was one of six candidates who had been highly recommended for the position.
She was jointly interviewed by Weissberg and Brieske. Stone won them both over in almost the blink of an eye.
“When Kenny and I interviewed Mitzi for the position, we knew instantly that she was perfect for the job,” Brieske recalled.
“Mitzi was the first person we interviewed; in less than five minutes, I hired her and canceled the other five appointments,” Weissberg said. “We were an inseparable team for the next 19 years. Mitzi’s presence in my life was pivotal to the success of Humphreys.
“She kept me organized, became friends with every important agent and artist manager, and her smile was as uplifting as all of her other skills. She’s one of the most amazing behind-the-scenes gems in the history of the concert business. She’s incredible.”
Stone laughed as she recounted one of the questions she posed to Weissberg at her job interview.
“I asked Kenny: ‘When are you booking Robert Cray’?” she said, citing the blues dynamo who has long been one of her favorite artists. “And we did have Cray play at Humphreys within a year or two of my working there.”
Stone was hired in February 1988. Her initial job title was office manager. Her starting salary was $1,400 a month. In that largely pre-Internet era, her job was accomplished with tools that seem almost primitive now.
Backstage and VIP passes were made by hand, with a rubber stamp kit and tweezers, then printed on a small black-and-white copy machine in her office. Season announcements were designed and sent out — via snail mail — to more than 70,000 San Diego area addresses each year.
“My desk had a three-line phone system, an IBM Selectric typewriter, a dial-up fax machine, a Macintosh II computer and a box of floppy disks,” Stone said. “It was a much simpler time!”
Mitzi Stone is shown at her desk at the Humphreys Concerts by the Bay offices. She has been a behind-the-scenes mainstay of the annual concert series since 1988.
(Courtesy of Mitzi Stone
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Almost before her first concert season at Humphreys concluded in the fall of 1988, Weissberg had grown so appreciative of her versatility and tireless work ethic that he changed her job title to promotions director.
At his suggestion, Stone began reading Billboard, Pollstar and other weekly music-industry publications to expand her knowledge of the business. Her job was hands-on from the start.
“I loved those early days of grassroots promotions,” said Stone, who lived in Chula Vista at the time and is now a University City resident.
“A typical work week for me back then included picking up artists from the airport, driving them to radio and TV stations for studio interviews and performances, and setting up in-store appearances at Tower Records. With the help of merchandise from the record labels, all our local record stores — Tower, Wherehouse and Sam Goody — would work with me to create promotions with ticket and CD giveaways and poster displays.
“I also created record and CD bin card dividers with our logo and the date performers were appearing at Humphreys. It was not uncommon to walk into a record store and see dozens of Humphreys Concerts bin cards. We’d make flyers and pass them out at events. And we’d run print ads in The San Diego Union-Tribune and the San Diego Reader. Radio stations, record stores and print media were king.”
As the annual concert seasons at Humphreys grew — along with the venue’s seating capacity and the caliber of talent it presented — so did the scope of Stone’s job.
“When Mitzi started working for us in 1988, people still bought vinyl records — that was their main way of accessing music,” said Humphreys owner Bartell, who heads Bartell Hotels. Its properties include Humphreys Half Moon Inn, where the 1,450-capacity Humphreys concert venue is nestled alongside the hotel’s marina.
“Then, people stopped buying records and the Tower chain closed (in 2006),” Bartell said. “Mitzi’s job at Humphreys evolved and changed, and she changed with it. She processed (performance) contracts for us, hired local opening acts and had a very loyal list of group ticket buyers — companies or individuals — who would come to us, year after year, to buy thousands of dollars’ worth of tickets.”
One of those group buyers was David Caudle, a now-retired General Atomics engineer. He began buying tickets from Stone in 1997. The two started dating in 2017. They wed last November, and in January they held a celebration party at the indoor Humphreys Backstage Live.
The Humphreys Concerts by the Bay series on Shelter Island has become a quintessential live-music venue since being launched in the 1980s.
(Alan Hess / Courtesy Humphreys Concerts by the Bay)
A family affair
Stone turned 68 in March. She was 31 when she began her first and only concert-industry job in early 1988.
“My kids grew up at Humphreys,” said Stone of her daughter, Lauren Falconer, now 39, and son, Shea Alevy, 33. “They both have their own special memories of Humphreys.”
Indeed, they do.
Shea fondly recalled posing for a photo at the venue with Aretha Franklin. Later, as a young teenager, he compared spiked hairstyles backstage with actor-musician Kevin Bacon.
Lauren was not yet 3 when she attended her first concert at Humphreys. She had her first date and first kiss there, as well as attending a show at the venue with her husband before he was her husband. She and her brother both spent several summers working as unofficial interns for their mother at the venue.
“Being surrounded by music as a family at Humphreys brought a lot of joy to our lives,” Shea said. “And we got to learn a lot about the inner workings of the music industry. So much of what my mom does behind the scenes will never be truly understood, even by some of the people who interact with her every day and know what her job description is.”
“I feel like every milestone in our lives was connected to Humphreys “ said Lauren, who now has three kids of her own. All are Humphreys veterans and Stone, their proud grandmother, delights in sharing musical experiences with them.
“Mom is a promoter of people in her personal and professional life,” Lauren said. “She celebrates them and promotes them. That’s who she is as a person, always hugging people and doing her best to uplift them. And that’s what she does for the artists, too.”
Stone’s warmth and congeniality have helped her win over even the most notoriously temperamental music stars.
Former Humphreys promoter Weissberg cites a memorable instance in “Off My Rocker,” his 2014 memoir. It came during singer Anita Baker’s pair of sold-out 2003 shows at the venue, for which tickets cost a then-record $85. Baker demanded stage lighting for an arena, not an intimate venue like Humphreys, and expensive additional audio equipment. She insisted the stage be redone with a white Marley-cover flooring usually used on proscenium stages by dance troupes.
Even so, Weissberg wrote in his book, after performing her first encore on her first night at Humphreys, Baker spotted Stone backstage and called out: “Mitzi! Mitzi! Is it okay if I do one more (song)?”
Stone has agreed to stay on, part-time, until the 2024 Humphreys season is announced early next spring. The void she leaves behind is formidable and then some.
“Mitzi knows her music,” said Humphreys talent buyer Wojas. “She always gave me good advice on new acts I should look into that she thought we should book, like Jason Isbell and The Teskey Brothers, who sold out two shows for us this year. Nine times out of 10, she was right about them doing well.”
Humphreys owner Bartell agreed.
“Mitzi always had good ideas at our concert meetings with Goldenvoice,” he said. “She essentially created the position she had, which made it very difficult for us to replace her. Because there are very few people in our industry who actually do all that Mitzi does.”
(Courtesy of Mitzi Stone)
Mitzi Stone’s favorite concerts
Anyone who has attended more than 700 concerts at a single venue over the course of four decades might be expected to be a little blurry on specifics. But not Mitzi Stone, who is set to retire after working for 36 years as the promotions director at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay.
Asked to cite her all-time favorite performances at Humphreys, she quickly provided her top 15, starting with a 1989 show that took place during her second season working at the venue. Her choices underscore the breadth and depth of her musical tastes.
Al Green, 1989
Vince Gill, 1993
Donna Summer, 1995
Seal, 2004
Aretha Franklin, 2005
B.B. King Blues Festival, with B.B. King, Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Joe Bonamassa, 2005
Stevie Wonder, 2007
Earth Wind & Fire, 2009
Bonnie Raitt, 2009
Grace Potter, 2013
Amos Lee, 2014
Chris Stapleton, 2016
Leon Bridges, 2016
Mudcrutch, featuring Tom Petty, 2016
Marcus King, 2022
