A native of Washington, D.C., Linda Lou Bolden was born on February 19, 1950. She is the eldest of seven children born to Earl Stanley Bolden, Sr. of Washington, D.C. and Ella Weldon Bolden (née Ella Mae Green) of Birmingham, AL. Her mother, a skilled stenographer and typist left the south in 1946 and was hired by the War Department in where her 100 wpm typing skills were in demand after World War II. Earl was raised in the Shaw neighborhood of the city, near the U Street Corridor, known as "Black Broadway" because of its literary and artistic influence and where jazz greats like Duke Ellington and writers like Langston Hughes were key players in the "Black Renaissance" period of the 1920s and 1930s. A handsome and charismatic character, Earl briefly dated Billie Holiday who performed often in the area during her early career. They remained friends until her death in 1959. Following a brief first marriage, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941. After the war, he worked a civilian employee for the federal government. He met Ella in the cafeteria of Pentagon and they were married in 1949. Ella was one of the first African-American women to be trained in the operation and programming of the federal government's new mainframe computer system when it was introduced in the 1960s. She retired from the Department of Transportation after 30 years as a civil servant. Earl was a maintenance engineer with the Physical Plant Department at Howard University for over 20 years until he retired.
As a very young child, Linda Lou lived from place to place throughout Washington, DC, while her father struggled to maintain adequate employment to support his ever-growing family which had grown to 6 children by 1957 (a brother died of cancer at age 4 in 1956). But they always ended up back in the familiar Shaw area. In 1958, her parents were able to buy a small semi-detached row house in upper northwest DC, just outside the "Gold Coast" where the Black aristocracy of the day - the doctors, lawyers, and business owners - lived in large homes with beautifully landscaped lawns. Rock Creek Park served to divide this section from "west of the park" inhabited primarily by whites of the same socio-economic level as the African-American professionals on the east side. Linda Lou attended junior high and high school with the children of these affluent families, many of whom followed their father's footsteps. Among them are white-collar criminal defense attorney Theodore V. Wells, Jr., plastic surgeon William Earl Matory, Jr., MD and heathcare expert, Dr. Reed Tuckson.
In the mid 1960s, Linda Lou's father realized that Linda Lou was excelling academically in school. Rather than work for the city's largest employer, the federal government, she wanted to go to college, being the first in her family to do so. Earl secured a job in the maintenance department of Howard University after he discovered that the employees' children could attend free of charge. At first, Linda Lou wanted to be a cardiovascular physiologist after her father introduced her Dr. Gwendolyn Brownlee, a Howard University physiology professor. Dr. Brownlee became her mentor, helping her with science projects. However, it was a tour of the school's pathology department that put an end to any thoughts of a career in medicine. She unceremoniously passed out at the sight of stack and stacks of dead bodies, donated to the medical school for research. When she came to, Linda Lou promptly changed her major to Fine Arts with an emphasis on Technical Production and Stage Lighting. It was the only field of study that did not require science or math, never one of her strong areas of study.
In 1968, the country was in the throes of the Vietnam War and a new, more radical awareness among Black Americans. Linda Lou and her high classmates had just graduated in June with hair "dyed, fried, and laid to the side" and grooving to the sound of Motown. A mere two months later, Freshman Week at Howard University was a campus of Afros and dashikis with students chanting James Brown's hit single of the year "(Say It Loud) I'm Black & I'm Proud". This revolutionary change led the school's Department of Theater Arts to create the Black theater movement in Washington, D.C. The curriculum switched from an emphasis on classic plays such as "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare and "Negro" standards like Langston Hughes' "Simply Heavely to more cutting edge works by contemporary Black playwriters such as N.R. Davidson's "El Hajj Malik" directed by then-Howard University professor Glenda Dickerson (currently professor of theater and drama at the University of Michigan), "Ornette" by playwright-in-residence Clay Goss, "Tabernacle" by Paul Carter Harrison. These works incorporated modern dance, drama, and costuming. The school created a score of brilliant young students uniquely trained in drama, music, dance, and visual arts. Her classmates included choreographer/actress/producer Debbie Allen, her sister, actress Phylicia Rashad, and writers Pearl Cleage and Breena Clarke. Other alumni of the Fine Arts department include actors Lynn Whitfield, Isaiah Washington, Anthony Anderson and gospel music great Richard Smallwood, not to mention Donny Hathaway and as part of the drama school's practical course of study, Linda Lou worked on numerous productions at the university's Ira Aldridge Theater, considered one of the most outstanding venues in college theater. The school's theater group, The Howard Players, are known for its creative productions and the group tours throughout the world. In addition, during Linda Lou's four years Howard, the school had such prolific professors as jazz great Donald Byrd and frequent guest teachers such as alumni Roberta Flack and the late Donny Hathaway.
Attending classes full-time and being a member of The Howard Players was demanding, but Linda Lou managed to find time to work as a photojournalist on the university's newspaper ("Hilltop") and yearbook ("Bison"). If she wasn't in the theater department building sets and hanging lights, she was running up and down a basketball court or football field in search of the definitive sports shot. In 1971, she became the first female sports editor for the "Bison", covering sports events throughout the east coast area. Linda Lou graduated from the school 1972 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. However, rather than following her talented classmates to Broadway and Hollywood or accepting one of the sports writing jobs she had been offered, Linda Lou chose a career in the music business as a publicist and photographer. While still at Howard University, she had made a name for herself as the official photographer for the Grammy-award winning R&B trio The Delfonics, known for such hits as "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time?)" and "La La Means I Love You". In fact, her senior year final test for the advanced lighting design class was an innovative synchronization of color and music against a white scrim, using the instrumental version of the trio's song "For The Love I Give To You" and ending with a dramatic template projection silhouette of the trio created from one of her photographs taken at a live appearance of the group at the famed Apollo Theater
In 1973, McCall accepted a job at Stax Records, Inc. in Memphis, Tennessee. There, she learned the business as the publicist of We Produce label-owner Josephine "Jo" Bridges, whose group, the Temprees, was making a name for itself nationally. In addition to handling the group's public relations, McCall also designed several of their album covers. While at Stax she met her future husband, Con Funk Shun drummer Louis A. McCall, whom she married on January 15, 1976 in San Francisco, California
The couple's early marriage was spent on the road with Con Funk Shun. Linda Lou was not the usual "band wife", choosing instead to use her considerable knowledge in the business of music to help her husband's band. In addition to handling all of the group's business and publicity, Linda Lou put her college degree to use, often designing the band's stage lighting. Con Funk Shun signed a recording contract with Mercury Records in the summer of 1976 and released a self-titled album later that same year-- with the cover was designed by Linda Lou. She made the band's original name "Confunction" more aesthetically dynamic by changing the spelling to what it is today. In 1977, Linda Lou became an American Federation of Musicians (AF of M) licensed booking agent and snagged the group's first major tour as the opening act for Rose Royce and LTD. The tour was instrumental in the critical and financial success of Con Funk Shun's second album, "Secrets", which became the first of five gold albums awarded by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
It was during the Rose Royce-LTD-Con Funk Shun tour that Linda Lou became aware of a child that her father, Earl, had prior to his marriage to her mother (Ella was his second wife). Born in Washington, DC in 1941, her half-sister, Earline Bowie Franklin, currently lives in Detroit, Michigan. Although the two siblings were well into their respective careers when they met, both have excelled in similar areas in the business of music. Earline is president/CEO of Entertainments Finest and Associates. She is the widow of the late Rev. Cecil Franklin, manager and older brother to the legendary Aretha Franklin. Linda Lou and "The Queen of Soul" share a niece, Cristal Robin Aretha Franklin, also of Detroit.
McCall designed many album covers for Con Funk Shun or acted as art director or stylist. She served as production assistant under legendary producers Clarence "Skip" Scarborough (Earth Wind & Fire) and Maurice Starr (New Edition and New Kids On The Block), co-wrote several songs for Con Funk Shun, including "California 1", "Promise You Love", "Welcome Back To Love", and "T.H.E. Freak". One of her songs "Bad Lady" peaked at #19 on Billboard magazine's Top R&B Singles charts. She is credited with taking the group's second chosen name "Confunkshun", (after "Project Soul"), and making it consumer-friendly and more aesthetically pleasing by adding the spaces and capital letters and adding the second "f" in the group's biggest hit single "Ffun". During the demise of his first marriage, she encouraged lead guitarist Michael Cooper to "put that pain on paper", resulting in the memorable "Love's Train" and "I'm Leaving, Baby", both written by Cooper and showcasing his ballad vocal skill. With the help of Felton Pilate, she wrote the rock guitar-laden "California 1", a tribute to the state's natural beauty, using the Christopher Cross Grammy-award winning masterpiece "Sailing" as her inspiration after being told by a Mercury Records executive that "black people couldn't write pop songs". It still stands as one of the group's most popular songs worldwide.
Linda Lou became pregnant with the couple's first child in the spring of 1978. McCall immediately left the demands of road travel and returned to their home in Vallejo to prepare for the birth of the baby. Unfortunately, she delivered a stillborn boy on December 3, 1978. She returned to the studio days later to assist with the group's fourth Mercury Records album "Candy". She found herself pregnant again in February 1979 the day after they group attended the "The 21st Annual Grammy Awards". Instead of staying home this time, she returned to the road with the group as road manager to their guest percussionist Sheila Escovedo (now Sheila E.). She went into labor while the group was appearing in Atlanta, Georgia and returned to the Bay Area. There, she gave birth to the couple's daughter on October 3, 1979 in Vallejo.
In 1981, at the urging of several of the group's lawyers, McCall entered law school at the University of California, Davis. Her first year was complicated by the fact that she was still instrumental in the Con Funk Shun creative process. They were releasing their 7th album. She not only acted as producer Skip Scarborough's production assistant, she designed the album cover, wrote the "Renaissance" liner notes, and co-wrote 3 songs including the album's featured single "Bad Lady", which peaked at #19 with a bullet on Billboard's Top 100 R&B Singles chart in January 1982.
While still in school, McCall became pregnant again and delivered a son on December 28, 1982, her husband's 31st birthday. She returned to law school just 10 days after giving birth. Several months later, she began to suffer from severe fatigue, weight loss, and joint pain. It was the symptoms of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), an auto-immune disease which had been diagnosed during her law school physical in 1981. By November 1983, she was forced to leave law school due to health reasons, with just 6 months to go before graduation.
In spite of her illness, McCall continued her work with Con Funk Shun. Finally, the group disbanded in 1986 after 10 years with Mercury Records. She and Louis moved their family back to her hometown, Washington, D.C. She became a mortgage loan analyst and Louis excelled as a top Chrysler salesman. In 1990 they attended a concert as guests of Con Funk Shun lead singer and songwriter, Felton Pilate. After leaving the band, he had become music director and producer ("U Can't Touch This") to rap innovator MC Hammer. Felton suggested that McCall submit her resume to Hammer's brother and personal manager Louis Burrell since his new company Bust It Production/Management was in need of some administrative guidance. She did and was hired in October 1990. Once again, she and her family crossed the U.S. and settled in Hammer's home base, Fremont, California.
McCall began the business of getting Bust It's Oakland offices in order. She set up the administrative and operational policies and procedures and became primary liaison between Louis Burrell and Hammer's attorneys, accountants, and other support staff. She later became the Vice President of Bust It Management who artists included Heavy D., Doug E. Fresh, and former New Edition lead singer, Ralph Tresvant. She shared the legendary "Jack The Rapper" Manager of the Year Award in 1991 and was a sought-after moderator or panelist at many of the industry conventions.
In February 1992, Linda Lou and two other Bust It executives were sent on a fact-finding trip to Europe since Hammer was considering opening an office in London. There she met with EMI execs in London, Cologne, Germany and Amsterdam. Linda Lou left the management company in May 1992 and transferred to the Bust It office in Los Angeles as Vice President of Special Projects under Senior VP Ronald McCarrell who had formerly been with Capitol Records.
Hammer closed his companies in October 1992, leaving many of his employees suddenly out of work. During the next year, McCall went through several legal battles with Hammer. Subpoenaed to testify in a civil sexual harassment trial brought against Hammer and members of his "posse" by a former female employee, McCall woke on the day she was to appear in court to find that the car that Bust It had co-signed for her had been repossessed. She contacted the judge presiding over the rape trial and informed him about it. Under heavy guard, she appeared at the trial in Oakland anyway and later sued both Hammer and the bank that financed the car. She settled out of court with the bank in 1995. She had previously won an out-of-court settlement against MC Hammer when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) granted her the right to sue MC Hammer (real name Stanley Kirk Burrell), his brother Louis K. Burrell, and the Bust It corporations for wrongful termination, sexual discrimination, age discrimination, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Although the terms of the agreement are not confidential, McCall has not revealed the terms of the financial settlement which was finalized in November 1993, following a brief two-month negotiation.
During her stint with MC Hammer, McCall formed The Entertainment Qartel, Inc. (EQartel) in 1992, specializing in music business administration and entertainment marketing, while living in North Hollywood, CA. Then at 4:31am on January 17, 1994, Linda Lou and Louis awoke to a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. Known as the Northridge earthquake, it was one of the most destructive in US history. Being just 6 miles from the epicenter, it scared Linda Lou enough that she left California two days later for her parents' home in Washington, D.C. In A few months later, she relocated to Atlanta, GA to take advantage of the fact that the city had become a new center for hip hop and rap music. There, she expanded the services of EQartel by creating the Rhyme Scene Unit, a regional street team which provided marketing and promotion for new and established artists by creating a "buzz" for the product at the consumer level, forcing radio stations and record retailers to take notice. This "from the streets up to radio" marketing strategy was created and perfected by Hammer and Louis K. Burrell in the late 1980s which led not only to Hammer's overwhelming success but made radio stations give rap and other popular urban music the attention that had previously been reserved for pop, rock and country music and the "from radio, down" school of record promotion. McCall's husband Louis was in charge of the day-to-day operation of the street marketing arm of EQartel, while she concentrated on music business administration consulting and the street team tracking report system that she had developed in 1992. By the mid-1990s her tracking reports which she called the "MaxxTraxx Resporting System", had become the industry standard.
In the early hours of June 25, 1997, Louis was murdered at the home of a friend in Stone Mountain, Georgia during a home invasion robbery. Left with two children to raise, McCall stepped up her business dealings and the Rhyme Scene Unit became part of Interscope Records' newly formed national street team squad, headed up by her good friend and former Bust It employee, Anthony "A.D." Daughtry. One of their first projects was the up-and-coming white rapper Eminem, signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath label, distributed by Interscope. Through street marketing strategies created by McCall and Daughtry, the Interscope street teams created a street presence for Eminem which supported his successful debut album, "My Name Is…." The teams were also instrumental in the success of other new Interscope artists like Mya, the Black-Eyed Peas, Eve and the Ruff Ryders.
After her work with Interscope, McCall took over as acting chief of Streetwise Promotions, owned by Daughtry. Under her guidance, Streetwise went from a powerhouse San Francisco Bay Area street team to a 26-member national team whose clients consisted of just about every major hip-hop, rap, urban and R&B artist from 1998 until 2003.
In the fall of 2003, McCall was forced to cut back her business endeavors due to the re-occurrence her long-time disease, lupus. Apparently, the stress of her husband's murder and non-stop working had taken its toll on her body. She let her street team work go to concentrate on select consulting jobs and managing her music publishing company, Exxtra Foxx Music (BMI).
In her limited spare time, Linda Lou volunteers as a consumer protection activist. In addition, for almost 10 years, one of her missions has been to get her husband's murder solved. Through her unrelenting efforts, the case has been reopened three times, once after contacting the Georgia Governor's office in 2003. Her fight was made harder due to the fact that the DeKalb County Police Department has had several management turnovers in the years since Louis' death, due in part to allegations of corruption which came to national attention following the murder of a newly elected sheriff orchestrated by his predecessor in December 2000. However, a new D.A., Gwen Keyes Fleming, sworn into office in 2004, believed that the case could be solved based on the dedication of DeKalb County police detective Lt. Brian Harris, who has worked vigorously on the case since 1999.
Finally, on January 18, 2007, a grand jury indicted 28 year-old Marques Clair in the murder. He had been a suspect every since McCall's murder. Unfortunately days after the indictment, Clair held in New Jersey on other charges, escaped from custody. The DeKalb County DA's office claims that it was assured by Essex County, NJ that the suspected killer would be held there until he was extradited back to Georgia. However, DeKalb County never served Clair with the murder arrest warrant so he apparently was released by Essex County on electronic monitoring. It is believed that he found out about the murder indictment from relatives living in the Atlanta area following news clips which aired on January 22, 2007. He promptly cut off the device and fled. DeKalb County did not know that Clair was on the run for almost 3 weeks. Up until that point, Linda Lou gave the new Dekalb County DA's office her support, even appearing on the news at their request to make a public plea for a cold case squad for the state's second largest county. However, when the escape came to the attention to reporter Doug Evans of Fox-5 Atlanta, Linda Lou was told that she "would be cut out of the loop" if Fox made the blunder public. Shocked at such insensitivity, Linda Lou sent a curt email to the DA Gwen Keyes Fleming, letting her know that she was not going to made a scapegoat for her office's incompetence. What Dekalb County referred to as a "leak" was nothing short of a "cover-up". Keyes Fleming called Linda Lou personally to assure her that her office was not trying to hold her responsible. Yet the initial threat was carried out - Linda Lou called the prosecuting attorney on March 23, 2007 for a status on the hunt for the killer and was told by John Melvin that he was not allowed to talk to her due to "a previous communication problem". A phone call to Keyes Fleming went ignored. No matter - Linda Lou had her own sources and discovered that Clair had been picked up in Virginia by the FBI. He had been on the run for over three months, while the DA's office refused to get help from the media or the public, allowing a suspected killer to run from state to state.
"Justice delayed is often 'Just Us'," Linda Lou stated before the recapture. "Dekab County continues to be ineffective, incompetent, and insensitive." Her work is done, she claims. The trial was supposed to be scheduled for late 2007 or early 2008. However, Lt. Harris, the lead detective on the case, was recently deployed for a second tour of duty and may be gone for as much as 12 months. "We pray that Lt. Harris returns home to his family safe and sound," states Linda Lou. "Not for the sake of this trial, but because he deserves it. He has been to Iraq twice since 2003, after giving his life to law enforcement for so many years." As a result of the delay, Clair requested a bond on December 7 and was granted bail of $150,000. The family was upset that a man who has shown consciousness of guilt by becoming a fugitive should get a chance at going free again - while Lt. Harris puts his life at risk again by fighting for his country. The prosecuting attorney and the District Attorney still refuse to talk to Linda Lou directly. "Of course this is upsetting to me," says Linda Lou. "I have done everything that I can do to support Ms. Keyes Fleming, an African-American woman. Whenever I have done news interviews, I have been publicly supportive of her and her staff, in spite of any personal feelings I may have had at the time." She says that she took her cue from Emory and Jo Ann McClinton, the parents of slain Atlanta socialite, Lita McClinton Sullivan, whose dignity in the face of such adversity really impressed her.
Linda Lou's songs are still being sampled by new artists and appear on many of the "The Best Of Con Funk Shun" and "Greatest Hits" albums. Most recently one of her songs "Honey Wild" was sampled by rapper Lil Wayne on his "The Carter III: The Leak" album. The new work is called "How You Like Me Now". As of December 10, 2007, there was a bunch of controversy concerning the alleged "leak" of this CD which was slated to be released on December 18, 2007. McCall is a long-time voting member of the The Recording Academy ("The Grammy Awards") and a former member of its Memphis chapter's Board of Governors. As of 2006, she lives outside Atlanta, Georgia near her two children. She insists that now her most reliable male companion is a 4 lb. Japanese Chin. named "Cooper" after the mini British automobile and correspondent Anderson Cooper. Linda Lou's hobbies include photography, gardening, and watching film-noir classics on Turner Classic Movies and reruns of "The Wire", featuring British actor Idris Elba.