by Mark E. Waterbury

Steve's involvement with motorcycle and automobile magazines actually afforded him the opportunity to meet several musicians who were just launching their careers. "I had gasoline in my blood," Steven admits. "Going to see bands perform on Friday nights was my time away from machinery. Conversely, musicians would come out on Saturdays to see me because cars and bikes were the diversions from their careers." While in Long Island, Steven hung out with Billy Joel, and after relocating to the New Jersey shore he became acquainted with a young Bruce Springsteen, the latter buying three motorcycles from him over the years. In 1974, Steve also heard from a friend about a blues musician who was supposed to be a very hot performer. So one night when he was on one of his recreational sojourns to a local Jersey music haunt, he caught the man's act. He was extremely impressed not only by the performer's dazzling guitar work, but his unbelievable six octave vocal range. The only concern that Steve had was because of some of the player's mannerisms, he thought that there may have been some controlled substances involved. "His eyes were always closed and occasionally, he would bump into the mic," Steven recalls. "After he finished the first set, I told my friend I thought he was wonderful, but I was thinking he had a problem with drugs. Then I found out he was blind, and when I heard that, it just knocked my off my chair. So I went up and talked to him and that meeting started a fire of enthusiasm and interest in each other." The musician was Buster "Little Buster" Forehand, and soon after their first meeting Steven began working with him, primarily to book gigs but also assisting with some of Little Busters songwriting arrangements and basic management duties. "It was really a Godsend meeting him. I always had a great interest in the music industry, but it was not until I met Little Buster that I saw opportunities because of his overwhelming talent. He really wasn't in the limelight at the time, and was badly mishandled by the music business which at that time was unscrupulous."

Steven worked with Buster for nine years, basing a lot of his music business practices on how Phil Spector built the Wall of Sound. Along with his work with Buster, Steven worked as a research and development engineer for various automobile companies. He also raced motorcycles and went on to win six world championships. In the mid 80's, Steven's family moved to Arizona, and after visiting them, he decided to make the move as well. He quit working with Buster at the time, although the two remained close friends. A couple years later, Buster moved west himself and to retire from music due to his disillusion with his lack of success. His departure left a noticeable void in the East Coast music scene. Some articles were written about him in prominent magazines, and then B.B. King stated on the Tonight Show and on Letterman that Little Buster was the only musician that could fill his shoes. Suddenly, Little Buster was finding success and as the end of the nineties approached, his old friend Steven Kleinberg was realizing what he had been missing since he stopped working with music. Little Buster had some albums released on indie labels in the nineties, and one of the problems he encountered was getting very little input in the productions of the recordings. Around the same time through a friend of his who owned a blues club, Steven also met Ayanna Hobson, whose five octave vocal range nearly mirrored Little Buster's singing talents. "It came to me that Ayanna would be able to sing some of Buster's music and that would create an alternative form for marketing the music. In spite of her background, she never heard of Little Buster. When I sat her down and played his music, she was just knocked over by the quality of his music. She said she would love to record some of it." Steven rounded up a number of the area's top musicians and set out to record "Looking For a Home 2" which was a sequel to Buster's first album. After they heard the demo for the recording, instead of shopping it to labels, Steven, Buster and Ayanna sat down and decided to create their own record label. "We had plenty of music that was very marketable. We felt that we could do a good job of opening the doors worldwide for Buster's talent. Adding in Ayanna's talent as a tribute to his music gave us a lot of possibilities." Steven quit the automotive industry and thus Little Buster Records was launched. In that way, Steven once again developed a vehicle, this one designed to take Little Buster's music to the masses. "If you are going to start an indie label you need something very unique and dynamic to bring to the marketplace. You need the right sound quality to make it stand out, and if you do that, than you actually have a chance at a hit record."

In 2003 at Little Buster's suggestion, a nationwide tour was set up sponsored by the National Federation for the Blind. Unfortunately, about six months before the tour was to start, Little Buster suffered a stroke leaving him incapable of performing. Despite the setback, Steven and Ayanna are keeping the fires burning at Little Buster Records. "Ayanna and I talked about it and we knew that Buster had music that had not been recorded yet. Both of us are working to establish a musical legacy of Buster's music through Ayanna's performing and then marketing it through our label." Steven is considering adding some other artists to the label at some point, including possibly some of the musicians involved in the NFB concert tour. Some of Buster's songs have been placed on television shows and Ayanna has songs that are climbing the charts. Steven keeps working at expanding the legacy of Little Buster Forehand, and it has become obvious music has supplanted gasoline in his bloodstream. "Even though the automobile industry was pretty exciting and I was getting tremendous satisfaction from it and won all these awards, I still felt through music I achieved more of a positive feeling of creating greater substance of significance than transportation. I have a trophy room from my racing days, but I get much more satisfaction out of music that I produced or help create. The music somehow just does it for me."

Steven Kleinberg's advice for musicians: "There is the commercial aspect of the music industry such as rap and rock, and then there is the more historic and cultural side like blues or jazz. You have to find your niche demographically, whether you want to market to the older market or the younger side and then target your marketing to how they accept music."