Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald founded the independent publishing powerhouse Prescription Songs 14 years ago, and launched its affiliated label Amigo Records 7 years ago.

Sparkplug facilitator Ashlee Gibbs oversees day-to-day administration of the Prescription Songs/Amigo Records offices in Los Angeles and Nashville with a staff of 25, and an unconfirmed roster of an estimated 100 plus songwriters.

Gibbs is a former senior operations specialist for financial services companies working in Florida, and later in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles, before being approached by Gottwald to join the music publishing company and record label in 2017.

Prescription Songs has had a lengthy non-country relationship with Nashville. From 2013 to 2017, the publisher and Big Machine Music had a joint venture to co-publish songwriters there.

In 2016, Prescription Songs opened its own “Music City” office, helmed by Katie Mitzell Fagan, to invest in the city’s non-country scene. High-powered A&R executive Mitzell Fagan is also co-founder of The Other Nashville Society, an industry group for non-country professionals and artists.

While music publishing remains one of the more stable sides of the music business, like all other sectors it has been transformed in recent years by an ever-evolving global network of digital music platforms, and streaming services.

At the same time, as major labels consolidated, downsized, and then stripped away their marketing and distribution services, music publishers like Prescription Songs have greatly expanded in order to oversee intellectual property creation, and branding strategies while wholly committing to the long-term talent development of their songwriting rosters.

Among  Prescription Songs’ many, many triumphs have been: Doja Cat (“Say So”; Kim Petras (“Unholy” with Sam Smith); Lauren LaRue (Arizona Zervas’ “Roxanne”); KbeaZy (“That’s What I Want” for Lil Nas; Fridayy contributing to DJ Khaled’s “God Did” with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, and John Legend; Emily Warren who has co-written a dozen Billboard Hot 100 entries including for such artists as  Meghan Trainor, Lizzo, James Blunt, the Chainsmokers, and Dua Lipa; LU KALA featured on Atlanta rapper Latto’s 2023 international pop-rap hit “Lottery”; and SNOW WIFE, named as one of Spotify’s Pop Rising Artists To Watch for 2024.

In recent months  Prescription Songs has signed: Singer/songwriter and pianist Greyson Chance; singer/songwriter/producer Heather Russell; songwriter Kola Adigun; rapper/singer Payday; songwriter Morgan Nagler; the songwriting and production team Play-N-Skillz–brothers Juan “Play” Salinas and Oscar “Skillz”; songwriter, producer, mixer and multi-instrumentalist Tony Esterly; producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Cooper Holzman; country artist/songwriter Scoot Teasley; and soul-inspired pop artist and songwriter Josie Dunne.

Among the recent Prescription Songs partnerships are the signings of Miami-based artist and songwriter Aloisio, and Miami-based songwriter, producer, and artist JayM through fellow Prescription songwriter DallasK; the signing of artist/songwriter bülow via Emily Warren’s publishing arm Under Warranty; and, in partnership with Kobalt Music Group, the signing of songwriter/artist/producer Anderson East.

Prescription Songs/Amigo Records is one of the great music publishing and label enterprises. It appears to be a great place to work.

I agree with you, yes.

After director of operations was added to your GM job title, Katie Mitzell Fagan, the company’s head of A&R Nashville, said, “Ashlee is the glue that holds us all together. The systems she has established to keep our company working smarter, not harder, at all times, have expedited our growth as a whole.”

So your role is more administrative than creative?

I am mainly here for the admin purpose, and also for any operations standpoint, and for entire plans too. When Luke approached me, the first thing that he said was, “I don’t want the staff micromanaged.” I was brought in with a certain skill, and I have increased my skills being here, and with having the team that we have.

Prescription, we are just young, and we will continue to grow and learn, and keep trying to be the best company that we can at all times.

What specifically do you bring to Prescription Songs/Amigo Records?

When I think of the company, I think of someone for the staff, right? Because the A&Rs are the creatives, and they are there for their writers. I was brought on just to be a support for the staff, and obviously to be a support for the writers with admin work. But, at the end of the day, I am here just to make sure that people know where to go if they need something. If it’s anything like that I am always here. I feel privileged that I get to do that. I wouldn’t be here for 7 years if I didn’t.

Your financial services background is a tremendous resource to bring to a music publishing company and label in that you can drill down and analyze where to allocate resources, and also determine where and when to cut back. Not many people in the music industry have your level of financial proficiency.

Creative people in the entertainment industries will often spend the bank to attain what they want; whereas someone from a financial background will say, “Hey, I think that’s a real great idea, but we need to work this out more or do it another way.”

You can provide an unmatched restraint at times whereas a creative might argue, “No, let’s roll the dice. Let’s go.”

I have never felt more seen and heard at a compay than I do here. That is obviously a testament to Luke and what he has built with his executives like Rhea (Head of A&R West Coast Rhea Pastricha), Katie, Bryan Trenis (Head of Finance), Megan (VP Creative Synch Megan Wood-Petersen), Sara (Senior VP Creative Synch Sara Walker), and Diana (senior VP of Business Affairs Diana Sanders). I speak with each of them all of the time. So to be seen and heard in that capacity is amazing at a company. I don’t know any other company that I’d feel that. Being seen and heard all of the time.

With his ongoing production demands Luke can’t obviously oversee the company day to day. It’s impressive, however, that many of your songwriters describe him as being readily available as a career adviser and as a creative sounding board when needed.

We have a staff meeting every two weeks, and he’s part of that. He is very much part of our staff. So when he’s intervening or talking to the A&Rs daily, they give him updates. He’s very intertwined with our staff, which is great. He’s maybe not in the office every day. He’s in the studio, but he’s great at just keeping up to date with the writers of the company, and A&R. They are comfortable going to him.

The close personal attention by Prescription Songs/Amigo Records staff to its writers, artists and producers is well known in the industry.

Working here has been, and is great, around the company that Luke built along with Rhea, Katie, and Sara, the founding people who have been here for a long time. Rhea has been here for 11 years. Katie has been here for 13 years. If you have that many people who have been here for a reason, Luke is obviously part of that; and, of course, the company and the executives that run it are phenomenal.

Since your arrival in 2017, the company’s staff has almost tripled.

We are now at 32 including myself.

How much staff are in the Los Angeles and Nashville offices?

In Nashville, we have 7 staff, all within the A&R department. We have one person who is not in the Los Angles or Nashville offices. That’s Bryan Trenis, our CFO. He’s in New York. He will come out to L.A. and Nashville to visit us and be here and there with our staff. We brought him in four years this November. It has been such a positive reinforcement to have him on the staff because he handles all royalty statements, and all of the things that come with being the CFO. He was the best addition and he’s such a great guy too.

You entered the music business from a decade-long career as senior operations specialist for financial services companies in Florida, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.

They had wanted to bring on someone to be office manager and make sure the staff was happy. To make sure that the office was running smoothly. When Luke talked to me, he said, “You come from a different background than anyone else we have hired here.” He liked my sense of music. I liked punk and I was a little more gritty, and that is something that you don’t find every day in someone who works in corporate financial services.

As a self-proclaimed punk rock fan, you got to wear the T-shirt of the Orange County band the Descendants at work.

Yes, yes, all pretty wild things. But it’s fun here. We do little staff things all of the time with our company. Whether it’s a bowling night or going to a holiday party to Universal Studios Hollywood and doing all the rides together. That sounds cheesy but we have ribbons for our bowling tournament.

How did Luke know about you to hire you in 2017?

My husband Clint…

Of course. As chief engineer and technical advisor, Clint is notable for being “Luke’s right hand.” He’s another original Prescription Songs employee.

Clint is the longest running Prescription person at this point. He and Katie started within three months of each other. I have been with my husband for 11 years now, and we will be 8 years married in October (2024). I met him prior to working at Prescription. I knew Luke because of Clint working for him; from company events that you could bring your spouse or your partner.

A veteran mix engineer Chris Gibbs specializes in Dolby Atmos immersive sound that places and moves sounds in three dimensions–all around the listener. He mixes for artists on the Prescription Songs roster and others outside the company including mixing both the original version of “Say So” and the remix for Nicki Minaj. He has also notably mixed tracks on recordings by Doja Cat, Kim Petras, LU KALA, Latto (formerly known as Mulatto), Saweetie and Crosses, Bonnie McKee, Banjee Girls, and the Kid Laroi.

Clint is having a very good year.

Yes. He’s very dedicated. He still does work here. He’s still Luke’s right hand. He’s across everything here as one of the engineers, and then he works for himself at night. After our daughter goes to bed, he mixes. He’s not afraid to work all hours sometimes, but he still has time to put our daughter to bed every night. Work has not affected that which is great.

Didn’t your parents warn you not to marry a musician?

(Laughing) He’s better than the last guy I was with, so my mom is very happy.

How old is your daughter now?

She is four. She was born two weeks into COVID, and our lockdown at the company. I’ve got to say Prescription as a whole, particularily during COVID, I think really shined in that we kept our employees safe. We tried to make sure that everyone was taken care of. No one was laid off during that time. There was nothing that happened that we had to let anyone go. I think that we all figured out how to work successfully remote, and still today we are able to work remote at times. I’m not in the office every day, but I talk to the staff every day, all day.

You jumped from a career as senior operations specialist for financial services companies in Florida, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles where you had moved in 2013. That’s quite a jump to then to work in entertainment.

It was a lot of learning for me coming into the music industry, really learning it, and understanding it. But yes, it was a transition, and it was a cool transition really. Looking back, it was a really cool transition.

When Luke came to me, he said, “Do you want to do this?” I was like, “Well I have a job.”  I took a month to think about it because I was leaving a job, and it was secure. But I quit my job and started here in May of 2017.

You had worked in financial services for your entire working career.

I started at Kovack Securities, Inc. when I was 18 as a receptionist, and after two weeks they asked me to stay on to be support for their financial advisors. It is a security company. We did a lot with stocks, mutual funds, and bonds. I worked there for 6 years and then I moved back to Vegas, and figured out what I was doing.

You had a corporate mindset: An understanding of technical analysis, asset allocation, and advising on long-term and short-term purchases?

Yeah, I found that I liked the stock market, and those kinds of loans at financial services. It was interesting, and I was good at it. I was good at the admin work of it and working with financial advisors. Sometimes it could sound like it was a little intimidating with the financial advisors, especially the higher tier ones, but I enjoyed it for the time that that I did it.

You were born in Pennsauken, New Jersey that I know is home of the Double Nickel Brewing company which makes Maple syrup-bourbon-barrel aged brown ale among its line of beers.

(Laughing) I dId not know that. I moved from there years ago. I spent my teenage years in Las Vegas.

What work did your parents do?

Well my mom worked for Digital Computers (Digital Equipment Corporation) which turned into HP Computers (Hewlett-Packard or HP) for 35 years. My stepfather owned a car dealership. So we moved from New Jersey, and the Delaware area to Las Vegas for opportunities for my dad. My mom worked from home, So we were able to live in Las Vegas.

Digital Equipment Corporation, using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. At its peak in the late 1980s, DEC had $14 billion in sales and ranked among the most profitable companies in America. In 1998, the company was sold to Compaq in the largest merger up to that time in the computer industry. Compaq was then acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002.

What is it like being raised as a teenager in Las Vegas and having access to so much entertainment locally?

It’s fantastic because you get away with a lot of shenanigans. My teenage years were definitely filled with more shenanigans, and more places to go to than probably most. So going to a movie or going to the Strip for a concert, anything like that was cool. I would never trade my Vegas childhood or teenagehood for anything. I think that it made me who I am, and for me to be adventurous.

Like watching those recent CNN series ads for “Vegas Sin City” that proclaimed, “You don’t know something is illegal in Vegas until you do it.” Or the dated, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

Vegas has changed so much too. When I was living there, they didn’t have a hockey team (the Vegas Golden Knights) and they didn’t have the Raiders (the Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League). They didn’t have all these fancy new things. So I still like the divier parts of Vegas. Punk bars. That’s the grittiness of Vegas, and it is what I still love.

You took special courses while you were working in Florida. Did you go to college?

I attempted to. I had a full-time job at 18, and I went to night classes for two years in Florida, and it just wasn’t working out for me.

Didn’t you later enroll at Los Angeles City College, the LACC, for the Extension Program?

Yeah, there was a brief time that I wanted to be a teacher. I said, “I’ll be back.”

You lived in Fort Lauderdale during the time that spring breakers came in hundreds of thousands, overwhelming the city with their sun-scathed beachside carousing.

Fort Lauderdale was an interesting time, and an interesting place. I never thought that I would live in Florida, but I did.

Let’s return to talking Prescription Songs/Amigo Records

Diana Sanders joined as senior VP of Business Affairs in 2022.

Throughout her extensive career, she has represented music artists and other entertainers, talent management firms, and industry executives in entertainment-related transactions as well as litigations involving copyrights, trademarks, and rights of privacy.

A graduate of Fordham University School of Law cum laude, and Saint John’s University, summa cum laude, Sanders began her legal career as an associate at Chadbourne & Parke in New York. She moved to Los Angeles in 2014, and has  worked at Thompson Coburn LLP, DLA Piper LLP and as partner at Russ August & Kabat LLP, and co-chair of its Music Practice Group.

Billboard recognized Sanders in its 2020 and 2022 “Women in Music Executives” lists, and in its 2021 and 2022 “Top Music Lawyers” lists. She was additionally honored by Variety magazine in 2021 as one of “Hollywood’s New Leaders.” She has been selected a “Super Lawyer Rising Star” by Los Angeles Magazine every year since 2018, and named by her peers to the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Best Lawyers in America, “Ones to Watch” lists.

Being a genuine legal superstar, Diana was quite a catch for the company.

Diana is definitely a superstar. She’s our business affairs, and she’s across all the deals and anything legal. I work in tandem with her and Bryan. We are costing together, and she’s doing all of the legal things. Our company is so much better with her, and I adore her personally. Her work ethic is great. She is always working and doing a great job.

What I love about her, and about our company, is that she’s not just about being a legal person in the office. Everyone, all of the A&Rs and anyone in the company, can go to her, and ask her questions about deals, and ask her about anything in general for publishing. It is outstanding to have her here.

Another in-house superstar is Jillian Rutstein overseeing synch licensing, social media platforms, and marketing at the companies. She started at the company in 2014 as receptionist and was Dir. Creative Synch & Digital before being promoted to Senior Dir., Digital Marketing & Creative Synch last year.

Jillian led the company’s digital marketing strategy for LU KALA’s “Pretty Girl Era.” Everything then changed for LU KALA with her self-empowerment anthem that was released in 2023. Produced by Dr. Luke. the track–with an estimated 19 million streams on Spotify—cemented her status as a major artist to reckon with and led to her performing at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards, and even snagging a Times Square billboard.

So Jillian is obviously a very important part of the company.

Yes. I talk with Jillian multiple times a day because I work on the Amigo side as well, and she is doing a lot of the digital marketing on the label side. She’s been here 10 years in April. Her success, and her story are very cool. To see her here for 10 years, starting off as a receptionist, and then building her career here, that is quite a feat. She is such a great part of this company. She loves her staff, and the staff trusts her too.

Amigo Records launched in 2017, and has had several formidable successes, following the run of Luke’s Kemosabe Records, a joint venture Sony Music Entertainment, ended in 2016, when Sony distanced itself from Luke after he had signed  Kesha, Doja Cat, Becky G, Juicy J,  Lil Bibby, Yelle, and Bonnie McKee.

What was the initial rationale in having Amigo Records as an in-house label? Was it because it is problematic to develop a songwriter or a songwriter/producer, and then have them release music on outside labels? Yes, Prescription Songs would still have its publishing share from, but it’s far more profitable to retain the songwriter as an artist too.

From my understandings is that we had a lot of our publishing clients that wanted to have artist contracts, and they had songs that they wanted to have released, and it (Amigo) was a great venture for them to do that. It is really their own label.

Do many of your songwriters want to be artists as well or are they content being songwriters and, maybe, producers?

I think it’s a “follow your next step” (attitude). We don’t have a crazy huge roster. It’s probably a little split, and whatever they want to do we support. And that’s when they sit down with the A&Rs, and the most we can ask for is how supportive our A&Rs are.

With a label there’s a different system perimeter than being just a music publisher. Songwriters and songwriter artists have different priorities. With songwriters the emphasis is on placements, and synch opportunities, but add in an artist element, and there’s increased marketing development needed.

Right, exactly. Our writers are like, “I really want to put this out,” and we are like, “Cool, let’s do it.” And it’s been great. I have been on the Amigo side since 2018, and Jillian is full-time now for Amigo. working with SNOW WIFE, LU KALA, Joy Oladokun, lil aaron, Birksie, Ethel Cain, Lourdiz, Big Boss Vette, and others. They are all writers for Prescription as well. Jillian is working every day talking to artists directly. She has such a solid relationship with the artists which is obviously very important for us as a label too.

If you have jumped on any other social media platform in the past 18 months, SNOW WIFE’s addictive, rebellious breakout Amigo pop single “American Horror Show” would surely have grabbed your attention.

From her momentous 2023 debut EP “Queen Degenerate,” developed with her close collaborators Slush Puppy and Jason Hahs, “American Horror Show” has attained over 50 million streams, resulting in SNOW WIFE being named one of Spotify’s Pop Rising Artists To Watch for 2024.  

I also just love her follow-up singles “Wet Dream” and my song of this summer, “Pool.”

LU KALA and SNOW WIFE are both having their successes now. They have been signed for a year or two, but we have had other people signed too for awhile like Lourdiz who is featured on Nicki Minaj song “Cowgirl” on her latest album. Lourdiz was also on Saweetie’s “Back Seat” in 2021.

For a company so closely associated with pop and rap, Prescription has an impressive handful of less commercially inclined songwriters like Ethel Cain, Joy Oladokun, Vancouver Sleep Clinic, and Dave Thomas Junior.

Ethel Cain, the Southern Gothic, Americana dream pop singer, signed with the company four years ago.

Ethel was a great signing, and I loved her artist project (the concept album “Preacher’s Daughter” centered around the life of a Southern Baptist girl that dreamt of escaping her small town). I loved “American Teenager.” A phenomenal song. That song gives you many feelings when you listen to it.

Ethel grew up in a Southern Baptist, Tallahassee, Florida household, and has been deeply involved with her faith from a young age.

Ethel Cain is fantastic. She’s super talented, and I love all what she does. I really enjoy watching clips of her performing at festivals. Her fans are so incredibly engaged.

Joy Oladokun is amazing too.

Joy has had a lot of success with syncs as well as the singles that she has put out. She’s really had amazing success. Our synch department really is so great with Joy.

Among Joy Oladokun’s prominent syncs have been on “CSI: Vegas,” “This Is Us,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “And Just Like That,” and “Station 19,” and Showtime’s “The L Word: Generation Q.”

 I really took notice of her in 2023 with her album  “Proof of Life” which she co-produced with Mike Elizondo, Ian Fitchuk, and Dan Wilson. Two of the standouts tracks I recall being “Sweet Symphony” with Chris Stapleton, and “We’re All Gonna Die,” featuring Noah Kahan.

The first-generation daughter of Nigerian immigrants, and a proud queer Black person, Oladokun grew up in Arizona. She has appeared onstage at Bonnaroo, Hangout, Lollapalooza, the Newport Folk Festival and Ohana Festival, and on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” PBS’s “Austin City Limits,” and NPR Music’s “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert,” and other TV shows.

On Dec. 13th, 2022. Oladokun performed along with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C, Sam Smith and Cyndi Lauper at the Respect for Marriage Act signing ceremony hosted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the South Lawn of the White House.

As well on the roster there’s the openly transgender German superstar singer Kim Petras.

Oh yes. To see Kim play at The Abbey in West Hollywood in 2018—6 years ago—   and then see her win a Grammy. It is the coolest experience seeing someone climb all the way to the top. From The Abbey, performing a small show, and having the best time performing with Sam Smith, and winning a Grammy, which is just unbelievable.

At the 65th Annual Grammy Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 5th, 2023, Petras and Smith won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance award for “Unholy.” “Unholy” was released in September 2022 through EMI Records and Capitol Records as the second single from Smith’s 5th studio album “Gloria” (2023), and as a bonus track on Petras’s 2023 debut studio album “Feed the Beast.”

Kim and Sam performed a mind-blowing Grammy performance of their smash collaboration of “Unholy” while as right-wing influencers fumed that Sam had appeared onstage dressed like the devil.

While Prescription Songs/Amigo Records releases certainly do attain radio airplay, the company isn’t dependent on the medium for its successes.

No. We have our amazing film and TV department, and obviously we have A&R opportunities outside of that to introduce to the writers. So we definitely don’t have to depend on radio for success.

Attaining synch placements for The Super Bowl, Frito Lay, Sephora, Apple, and BMW, HBO’s “Generation,” and Netflix’s “Dark and Lucifer” are like hitting home runs.

Yes. Jillian, Siara Behar, and Megan work their tails off. Megan has been here over 10 years too as a part of the sync department.

The company is loaded with A&R personnel.

Yes, we do have a lot of A&R. So all of our writers have someone. They have support. We are A&R heavy, but I think that goes along with how creative our roster is and how much support that we can give.

How does Prescription find creative talent, and develop it so well? The traditional way was to discover acts performing in clubs. Much of the talent on your roster are songwriters and songwriters/producers and multi-instrumentalists, like Tony Esterly and Cooper Holzman.

(Prescription Songs A&R executive) Chris Martignago signed Tony Esterly, and Prescription Songs A&R executives Nick Guilmette. and Hannah Montgomery both signed Cooper Holzman. Those were relationships that they had. Our A&R really create relationships with these kinds of writers from the start before they really have anything.

I understand that if a Prescription A&R executive is interested in moving forward with a signing, they will usually put the writer in sessions with others in the company’s roster in order to evaluate their work ethic, skill set, and even personal character.

Sometimes a writer may have already had success, and the A&R have had relationships with them for awhile or someone with someone from their management or from their team.

Do your A&R reps try to first get support of their A&R peers, and other staff in a signing?

It’s been very collaborative. Sara and Rhea are always talking about things they want to bring in and then they chat with Luke.

Luke has a strong A&R background as a songwriter, producer and mixers. Was it his specific strategy to have that high level of A&R in the company?

I think so, but it is also Katie and Rhea wanting to make sure that the more we sign the more staff that we have to be able to support each writer fully. Each A&R has their own roster, and we don’t want to overwhelm them to the point that they can’t service each writer. So it’s very important I think to Luke, Katie and Rhea to have enough A&R support to really support those writers that are on each roster.

So Luke stays involved with the writers?

Luke is very much involved. The team is involved. As I said we have so many meetings including meetings that are across everything, and everybody takes part. At the end of the day we are a team, so everything is very fluid. It’s a great place to bring someone that you want to sign.

With the COVID-19 pandemic did the rate of signing slow down? You seem to be on a signing spree of late.

We were very much similar doing that during COVID. Obviously, I think that part of 2020 was definitely for everyone a kind of, “What’s happening?” and “Where are we going?” for everyone in general. But we did thrive in 2021 and 2022 and continue to now. So we were signing a good number of people in those years too. I think the PR side of it, maybe, we didn’t have Alex (Alexandra Greenberg of Falcon Publicity) onboard yet.

On many of the songs in your catalog there are 4 or 5 songwriters involved. They can work in home studios and are in the position to use stems in recording tracks. A decade ago they’d likely work at an outside recording studio or at a studio within a publisher’s office. L.A. is so spread out that during the COVID-19 period, it was natural for your writers and staff to work from home, and you didn’t have to shut down.

Our A&Rs learned to cope with working during COVID. I was on maternity leave for three months before returning, and everybody learned to Zoom really quickly.  Also we were changing culture completely, where people had to really migrate to video. I think that our staff did it (the change) beautifully, and they helped us make the transition too for that period of time.

The company also benefits from the songwriters on the roster bringing in other talent into the Prescription Songs family. I’m thinking of Miami-based artist and songwriter DallasK being pivotal in bringing in Aloisio (Christian Aloisio), and JayM (Juan Romero). Your roster connects with people who are working with others in the industry, and they bring in what impresses them to your A&R staff.

I’m impressed that DallasK’s relationship with Prescription Songs goes back almost a decade.

Yeah, and it’s a very positive one (relationship) too, and that’s probably why he brings us the talent that he does and to the A&Rs, Siara being one of DallasK’s A&R, they work very close together, and her working with JayM has been fantastic. DallasK has such a great track record. And I’ve worked with him personally across emails and stuff, and he’s just a lovely person. He’s a very positive guy to have on our roster for sure.

The nature of pop music today is collaborative with songwriters writing and producing with two or three others. If a Prescription Songs’ songwriter is impressed working with a developing songwriter or producer, they are going to tell your staff. As compared to going out to see someone perform in a club, you have songwriters in collaborative relationships.

I know 100%. And I know for Rhea, it is so important. A&R has multiple meetings a week together where they are talking. I think it’s a testament that all of our A&Rs they don’t always come in (to the office). They talk. They communicate with each other. If they have someone that they like, they will ask, “What do you think?” They are always working collaboratively. They are always talking about who is in the session, and who they are meeting in the sessions with their writers. It’s very collaborative, and very creative at the company for sure.

Los Angeles today is what New York City was in the 1950s, an unrivaled entertainment capital. There’s so much crossover with music, film and TV, gaming, and sports sectors that attracts people with different backgrounds and disciplines.

It is interesting learning a lot about this industry going backwards. As a consumer of music I know what I like. Coming here and learning the past of how thing things worked prior to the general music industry, I didn’t know a lot of this stuff. So it’s always cool to learn and understand it.

How often did you come out of your office prior to COVID when you heard music that appealed to you saying, “Hey, play that again. I want to hear that.”

It used to happen a lot. When we were in the office prior to COVID, Rhea’s office was right next door to mine. So you can only imagine the hits that Rhea was playing that I could hear though the wall. I would pop into her office, “Hey what is that? I love that.” And she was always like, “I love hearing that from you” because I’m not in A&R. I am a consumer. I don’t listen to the music as an A&R. I have different ears, Hearing stuff is amazing, especially hearing what it becomes like with an Emily Warren.

Your A&R teams deal with musics you’d previously wouldn’t be associated with in any way. It’s not music that comes naturally to you. Not with your background.

It’s funny but I was talking to Siara who has a grasp of the Latin world. I love regional Mexican music, and especially the group Grupo Firme (based in Tijuana, Baja California). I was telling her, and she asked, “Do you understand what they are saying.” I was like, “Actually no I don’t know what they are saying at all, but I can feel it. I can feel what they are saying.” She couldn’t believe it. She was shocked. “I didn’t know that you loved them.” I said, “Yeah I really love regional Mexican music.” That kind of music really resonates with me.

Regional Mexican is a big umbrella term as a music genre as so many sub-genres have become more mainstream in America. The sub-genres are mostly due to geography and different cultures. Regional Mexican acts like Grupo Firme, Los Angeles Azules, and Banda MS have performed at Coachella and other American festivals. Grupo Firme’s 32-date “La Última Peda Tour” that roughly translates to, “The Last Drunken Party” is  currently touring the U.S.

Despite Mexican culture being very rich, it has long been marginalized in American media coverage. Los Tigres del Norte, whom corrido scholars consider the Rolling Stones of norteño music, played on a Berkeley Folk Festival bill in California in 1970 alongside Big Brother & the Holding Company, Big Mama Thornton, Joy of Cooking, and Nick Gravenites.

Today there is just so much music to lock into.

It’s true, and that is what I love. I get to experience all of that through our sync and A&R departments. I see Emails about certain songs or get to see part of certain styles and I hear demos of these songs; or in a staff meeting hearing certain things, and it’s cool. It’s a cool job for them (A&R executives) to have but I like being an observer from the outside which is cool too.

Do you have agreements with other publishers around the world or do you license direct?

We are admined by Kobalt. (Kobalt Music Group).

Despite many of your songwriters and artists collaborating with international acts like Dua Lipa, Sam Smith and others, Prescription Songs/Amigo Records is mostly US-centric. You don’t have offices outside the U.S. Will that change?

You never know. A large portion of our writers are here in the United States but quite a few in Canada, the UK, Australia other territories. Spellz is from Nigeria. Shae Jacobs is from London, but his family is from Nigeria, and Bantu is from Zimbabwe. LU KALA is from Canada.

LU KALA (Lusamba Vanessa Kalala) born in Kinshasa (formerly named Léopoldville) the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been in the music industry for over a decade. She started off writing songs for other artists. A decade ago, she co-wrote “Dangerous” with DVSN (singer Daniel Daley and producer Nineteen85), and Stephen “Koz” Kozmeniuk that was recorded by Jennifer Hudson. She was featured on Atlanta rapper Latto’s 2023 international pop-rap hit “Lottery.” When Latto’s team heard a hook that LU KALA had written in 2022, they called her to sing the chorus.

The company prides itself on advancing the careers of women in the music industry, and roughly two-thirds of its employees are female.

However If I didn’t mention Luke’s controversial dispute with Kesha many would wonder why I didn’t.

Kesha released five albums, including her blockbuster 2010 debut “Animal,” and three EPs through Kemosabe. in 2014, she filed a lawsuit accusing Luke of sexual assault and emotional abuse and she sought to be released from her Kemosabe Record’s contract. Luke vehemently denied her accusations, and simultaneously sued for defamation and breach of contract.

The multiple lawsuits stretched over nearly a decade, but were settled out of court in June 2023.  Kesha’s deal with Kemosabe ended seven months after her delivery of “Gag Order,” her final contractually obligated album for Kemosabe Records.

Kesha wrote in her statement accompanying the settlement, “Only God knows what happened that night. As I always said, I cannot recount everything that happened. I am looking forward to closing the door on this chapter of my life and beginning a new one. I wish nothing but peace to all parties involved.”

In a fitting way to ring the recent Independence Day, Kesha dropped her new single “Joyride,” marking her first release as an indie artist since parting with Kemosabe Records.)

Other collaborators in support of Kesha spoke quite negatively about their experiences working with Luke Ethel Cain stated in her 2023 Rolling Stone interview that she would not have signed to the company had she been aware of Luke’s involvement.

Have you had similar responses from other Prescription Songs writers or staff?

No, honestly, we haven’t.

We live in a cancel culture era and often people don’t recover from such an accusation.

It’s all unfortunate. I can only say that my time with Luke, and at Prescription has been a positive experience.

Was it a difficult transition for you to pick up all the subtleties, and the intricacies of music publishing coming into Prescription?

No and yes. No because I pick up things, and I like to learn, and I ask a lot of questions. But the 7 years that I’ve spent in this company, and in the business, things just change so quickly too, and I feel like I learn something new every day which is something that I think is great at this company. I can ask Brian a question. I can ask Diana a question. I can ask Rhea and Katie creative questions so I can understand what it even means. So I feel I’ve increased my knowledge as times goes on.

Like finding out with some tracks, “Hold on people, these writing splits come to 120%. Something has to give.” I think you know what I am talking about.

Yeah, I look at a lot of that, and at a lot of different things on the admins side and getting to sit with sync and understanding that things have to equal 100%; and having the legal means to make sure that everything is connected with the PROs. All of that stuff. I didn’t know any of it prior to 6 or 7 years ago. But I love understanding it all, and I love being able to ask questions. And then I get to understand it, and then something changes.

As far as hip hop is concerned, have you looked into (singer, songwriter, and record producer) Fridayy who is on our roster that was featured on a DJ Khaled song?

Of course, Fridayy contributed to DJ Khaled’s five-time Grammy-nominated song “God Did” along with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and John Legend. He also guested on the megahit “Forever” by Lil Baby. Moneybagg (“Lies), Chris Brown (“No One Else”), and A Boogie wit da Hoodie (“Need You Around”)

He’s just an incredible A&R, and fantastic human being. I love Fridayy’s solo work too. Recently he put out a song “Without You” (Def Jam Recordings). about his father who passed away a few months ago while Friiday was on tour.

In a lengthy Instagram post, Fridayy reflected on the night he learned about his father’s death. “Got the call my Pop had passed right before I was bout hit the stage in Paris. I couldn’t tell you the feeling. I was just with him before I went on my headlining Europe tour, I was showing him the videos of the US Tour. He kept saying, ‘Wow all those ppl?? I’m proud of you son.’ I told him, ‘It’s all cause of what you put inside me.’”

Friidayy is also from Philadelphia which is very close to where I’m from in New Jersey. I love that East Coast component.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band popularized the Tom Waits’ song “Jersey Girl.”

A Jersey girl, I will forever be.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Ashlee Gibbs, Prescription Songs/Amigo Records appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

One of the foremost independent music promoters in America, Disco Donnie Estopinal knows how to throw a party and keep it rocking.

With his 30th-anniversary celebration, Disco Donnie draws attention to the fact that he has crafted his own lane (as far from the spotlight as it gets–but its’ impact can’t be overstated) — creating a distinctive niche under the umbrella Disco Donnie Presents which has now been rebranded as Disco Presents complete with a new logo.

As Disco Donnie explains, “What we have built is bigger than just me now – it’s about the Disco Events team and the Disco fan community, and it deserves a name that exemplifies that. We’re excited for a fresh start and heading into our biggest years ahead.”

Since its founding in 1994, Disco Events has produced over 20,000 shows and sold more than 20,000,000 tickets in over 100 cities throughout North America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

This includes throwing raves in legit and non-legit warehouse and club venues and presenting massive multi-day festivals.

To kick off the 30th-anniversary celebrations, Disco Presents has announced Disco’s Zoolu, a three-day festival during Mardi Gras, with headliners including Illenium and RL Grime. Rabbit in The Moon (Live) is also joining for a special throwback event, “Zoolu Allstars.

Also announced were 30th anniversary-inspired sweepstakes, special ticket deals, festival activations, and fan contests.

Already holding an impressive event franchise portfolio, including Freaky Deaky, Ubbi Dubbi, Out, Ultimate Music Experience, Sunset Music Festival, and others, DDP’s most recent expansion kicked off with the acquisition of Lights All Night in 2022, further solidifying its position as Texas’s foremost independent promoter.

But there was more of Texas for Disco Donnie to conquer.

In 2023, he helmed pivotal partnerships with Third String Entertainment for So What!?, and the alternative rock festival Unsilent Night. Additionally, DDP joined forces with Illfest, and established groundbreaking alliances with Tahoe Live, and Shaquille O’Neal.

Considerably different from anything Disco Donnie has ever done before is the upcoming Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet, Texas from April 5th to 9th  The event will take place at the 1,200-acre Reveille Peak Ranch deep within the Texas Hill Country — just 60 miles outside of Austin–with 200 acres of camping grounds, and 50 miles of trails.

In the early 1990s, you might have spotted Louisiana State University student Donnie Estopinal waiting tables in New Orleans and pondering whether to follow his mother and be an accountant.

After co-workers coaxed him to attend local dance parties, youth Donnie fell in love with the dance culture, and he decided to start throwing parties himself.

Disco Donnie’s first party in 1994, Ultra Phat, took place in a warehouse space above a local bar, Café Siam. He threw parties there throughout the year—500 people at $5 a head—until the New Orleans police shut him down for alleged unlawful booze sales and excessive noise.

In 1995, Disco Donnie started throwing wildly successful raves at the historic State Palace in New Orleans, and he became a major player in America’s emerging EDM culture.

By the mid-90s, Disco Donnie was also doing shows in Atlanta, Mississippi, Louisiana, Houston, and Austin in both legit and underground venues.

Disco Donnie’s parties at State Palace eventually caught the attention of the Drug Enforcement Agency from the New Orleans field office. Under its Operation Rave Review, undercover agents had been surveying Donnie’s raves for 8 months. The DEA raided the State Palace Theater and office on Aug.26, 2000, on the suspicion that the venue and/or Disco Donnie were selling drugs backstage.

Even though the DEA agents tore through the State Palace until 1 A.M., they found no illegal drugs other than a joint that a bartender had. After this fruitless search, the DEA officers left, and the rave party resumed as planned.

Next, Disco Donnie and State Palace Theater owners, the Brunets brothers, were indicted under a grand jury for a violation of the Crack House Statute with an ongoing criminal enterprise (Title 21 U.S. Code, Section 856(a)(2) as part of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986.

Facing up to 20 years in prison, and a fine of up to $500,000 or both, Disco Donnie refused to capitulate. He continued throwing raves at the State Palace despite the occasional shutdown. He also started doing weekly shows at House of Blues New Orleans.

After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took up the case, coupled with media and public outcry, the U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped all charges against the three defendants but fined the Brunets’ corporation, Barbecue of New Orleans Inc. $100,000 for allowing the venue to be used as a site for the use and distribution of drugs.

While the American music industry was slow to recognize EDM, fans got on board on their own, without radio or TV support. Over the years, a handful of electronic festivals– HARD Summer, Electric Daisy, Moonrise, Electric Forest, and others transformed the live music business and become a vital revenue stream for the electronic music industry.

Starting in 1998 with a partnership with Pasquale Rotella, and Insomniac, Disco Donnie first worked on the flagship electronic music festival Electric Daisy Carnival, and Nocturnal Wonderland, and later brought the Electric Daisy Carnival to Dallas, Orlando, Puerto Rico, New York, and Las Vegas. He brought Nocturnal Wonderland to Austin, Beyond Wonderland to Seattle, and co-founded Electric Forest in Michigan.

In 2001, Disco Donnie moved to Ohio and expanded into producing shows in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Memphis.

When Robert X. Sillerman relaunched SFX Entertainment in 2012. Disco Donnie Present was its first acquisition after SFX’s revamping. Then in 2016, SFX Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the end of the year, the company went private and was renamed LiveStyle, with Sillerman exiting the company.

Disco Donnie bought back his company from LiveStyle in 2020 and never looked back.

As one of the leading live music presenters, you have built up quite a dynamic dance empire.

The rebranding of Disco Donnie Presents to Disco Presents celebrates your company’s 30th anniversary and is an acknowledgment of your unquestionable expertise as an innovator in developing new shows and finding new venues. 

Luckily, I have made a lot of relationships, and hopefully, I have always treated everybody fairly. I am constantly being sent new venues and new concepts. and we are always looking. I am always challenging my team to come up with new ideas where we already do events; but what kind of events can we do that are different? That can make a statement and leave a mark.

The umbrella term EDM–with its multiple subgenres–is as mainstream as it gets today. It has long shifted from its early underground warehouse roots to the big festival main stages, and many DJs are now celebrities as they challenge the distinction between DJing and live performance while promoters like you are pushing for the next thing.

Disco Presents will most likely produce 700 shows this year as Disco Donnie Presents also did last year.

You know, pre-COVID we were hitting probably a thousand shows a year. Now we are, yes, in the 700 range.

After COVID-19 restrictions shut down the touring business for most of 2020 and 2021, you hosted the first major festival in America in 2021 since the pandemic took hold: Ubbi Dubbi at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas on April 24-25 with a lineup of top EDM talent including Illenium, Kaskade, Destructo, Joyryde and others. It was reduced capacity, but still a major event that turned heads in the industry.

When we walked in at Ubbi Dubbi, and I saw everything that was going on, I turned to my wife and said, “I can’t believe that I actually do this. This is what I do.”

You only gave your team a seven-week warning that you had committed to a return to a festival model with the Ubbi Dubbi event in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It wasn’t for me; it was for all of us. For our mental health. We needed this, we really needed this.”

This year’s Ubbi Dubbi Festival again takes place at Panther Island, Fort Worth, Texas, May 25^th & 26^th featuring Afrojack, Galantis, Elderbrook, Audien, Le Youth, Crankdat, Kaleena Zanders, Juelz, nimino, IT’S MURPH, and more.

2023 wasn’t as difficult for live music in America as some had predicted.

I think the confidence in the air was good. There was a lot of traffic near the end of the year as a lot of people were touring. The big stuff still performed well. I think that a lot of the smaller and middle stuff didn’t do so hot.

2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for you.

Yeah, everything is going well. I am going to Austin in early March for iLLfest and to do another site visit for Texas Eclipse. Then I will be going back a week before Texas Eclipse to get ready for the big Eclipse show coming up in Texas in April. That’s kind of the largest show that I have done on my own.

What office staff do you work with?

We’ve never really had an office. We were mobile before COVID. Our team is around 20 full-time people and they work all over the country. Some are in California. Some are in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, and some are in New York. We are spread out everywhere. Then, of course, if we do a festival or another show, we probably hire another thousand people.

Meanwhile, married to a Puerto Rican, you live outside North America.

Yes, in Puerto Rico. I’ve been living there for 13 years.

You have been doing artist-curated, all-inclusive destination music festivals in Mexico since 2021.

Our next one is in Cancun at the end of April (April 26-28) called Paradise Blue Festival at Paradisus Cancun. They are artist-driven, so it’s all headlining bands. It’s really good seeing them all come together. They (fans) are all there for the same reason. It is just a whole different experience. Everybody is into the same thing. It’s just very rewarding to see the crowds and see how happy they are.

Are there restrictions or obstacles to doing shows in Mexico?

I’ve done shows in Mexico previously, and in Panama, the Dominican Republic, and in Puerto Rico. There are challenges working outside the United States, but we have been able to work through that and work with resorts. They have been great at issuing permits and helping us with all of the red tape that we need to do a show in Mexico. In that way, it is different. There is a language barrier between us and the staff, but we have been able to balance that out. Every time we do a show down there, we are getting better, and better at it. We will probably do a lot more.

Other than the corporate rebrand, you have recently overseen a number of strategic collaborations including Illfest, Tahoe Live, Shaquille O’Neal, and the pop-punk festival So What?! Also, you moved DP’s flagship Halloween festival Freaky Deaky from Austin to Houston.

As well, in what may be the crowning glory of your career, you have partnered with Mitch Morales’s Probably Nothing event company for Texas Eclipse April 5th-9^th, 2024 which may reset the boundaries of conventional festivals by converging music, space, science, art, tech, and wellness.

Did COVID coupled with the live music industry retrenchment, brought about further by layoffs, and consolidations of booking and promoter companies, lead to a period of reflection for you to think about diversifying Disco Presents’ portfolio?

That wasn’t so much a questioning period. That was more like, “Oh shit.” I think what you are seeing is that over a…. I sold my company 10 years ago, and I bought it back during the first two weeks of everything shutting down (due to COVID-19). That wasn’t so much a questioning period. That was more like, “Oh shit.” I think what you are seeing is that over a…. I sold my company 10 years ago, and I bought it back during the first two weeks of everything shutting down (due to COVID-19). So once I got my company back, and everything came back, I was able to be more fluid and be able to make different moves when you are independent than when you are part of a larger company. You don’t have to get approval on everything. That kind of thing would hold me back and slow me down.

Now that I am back as an independent a lot of deals are coming my way. People are reaching out to me. I’m hearing, “I wanted to work with you before, but you were with a big company. I want to work with someone independently. I see what you are doing. I have this venue. So…”

In 2023, you moved your flagship Halloween celebration festival, Freaky Deaky, from Houston to Austin’s Travis County Exposition Center. Why?

Two things. The venue we had used in 2019 was sold. The land was sold so we didn’t have a home. We had known that this was coming so we had been looking for alternative venues in the area for three or four years.

Freaky Deaky was founded by React Presents in 2008, which began a big Halloween party in Austin featuring carnival rides, games, costume contests, art, music and more.

After years of bringing Houston and Dallas “Something Wicked” and “Something Wonderful,” you chose not to return to those festivals in 2018. You partnered with React Presents on Freaky Deaky and announced that the festival would be held at the Sam Houston Raceway in northwest Houston supported by four headliners, Excision, DJ Snake, Porter Robinson, and Kaskade, which sent the EDM community and the internet in a frenzy.

You were quoted as saying, “We moved from Houston to Austin just so people wouldn’t complain.”

Well, they complained anyway. But I did a $99 ticket—which is like a price from 12 years ago—just to buffer against people being mad that it was moving.  People bought those and they were then very excited about moving Freaky Deaky to Austin.

After Travis Scott’s AstroWorld tragedy in 2021 it has become very difficult to secure festival venue space near Houston.

Yes, just because of all of the dynamics. and the things that you would need to do to produce a show there. I don’t even know if there’s been another festival there, but it is definitely a challenge. I had done festivals in and around the Austin area before. I have been doing shows there since probably since ’96. So, it just made a lot of sense to move it for one year as we continue to look for another venue to return to next year.

(At the rapper Travis Scott’s hometown November 5th, 2021, AstroWorld Festival in Houston, 10 young people were killed, and many more were injured, some severely, due to “crowd crush” or “crowd surge” as hundreds had rushed the event perimeter.)

You also became involved with several pivotal events. One is Shaquille O’Neal, and the touring live event series, Shaq’s ‘Bass All Stars. Will that type of celebrity partnership become more common in the future? It’s the type of affiliation that provides razzle-dazzle in the mix. I’d go to a festival just to see Shaq.

Yeah. He wanted to do his festival, and he has a house in Dallas. We had worked together before. So his team called us up, and they asked, “Do you guys want to partner with us on a festival?” So we put Shaq’s Bass All Stars Festival. together, and about 14,000 people turned up. Sometimes you don’t know what you are going to get. So those numbers were surprising to all of us. That it was so big, and that it was so well received by the community.

The one-day Shaq’s’Bass All Stars event at the Panther Island Pavilion in Fort Worth on Sept. 18^th, 2023, featured one of the deepest bass lineups of 2023. One day of 16 of bass music’s most prestigious acts— Alison Wonderland, Sullivan King, Crankdat, Kai Wachi, and LAYZ; all for fans of trap, dubstep, drum and bass, and melodic bass on two stages.

Of course, Shaq is basketball royalty, a player that was the dominant center of his era. He won four NBA titles. Under the artist name, Diesel, he has become respected as a true artist and entertainer amongst his peers and fans. 

He’s a rock star there. He’s a rock star everywhere but especially there. The local media, the local TV stations, everybody was announcing the event, and talking about it all the time. They showed up and videoed the show. We allowed them five minutes. We are now working on this year.

Tell me about your joint venture with Dallas-based Third String Entertainment. Why get involved with Mike Ziemer and Orlando Mendoza and present the So What?! Music Festival, and the alternative rock festival Unsilent Night under the Disco Punk banner?

Third String launched So What!? in 2008, with the eclectic event being early on soon-to-be stars like G-Eazy, A Day To Remember, and Bring Me The Horizon. Showcasing artists in punk, hip-hop, metal, and more, the event’s headliners have included Rae Sremmurd, Simple Plan, 100 Gecs, and more.

Mike is married to Anna (Anna Marie Taylor Cavitt-Ziemer) who worked with me (as regional marketing & operations manager) for a long time.

(A formidable live event figure Anna, aka AMC, is from Dallas and has been working on festival events for decades, racking up more than 1,000 shows. Her career kicked off at 17 when she worked at her first major festival, Tomorroworld.

So we were kind of in the same circles, and we were trading information and venue numbers. We had been talking about working together for a couple of years. Whether it was as one combo or we would do an EDM festival one weekend, and they would do their festival the next weekend, and we would share costs. In 2022, I almost got involved with So What?! We had a long conversation, but it was rushed, so it never got done. Last year we had a full year to delve into it and work out a partnership. It’s doing very well.

You and your team also were quite busy already.

We were busy, but we still have a team. Once we put something in the system we can start working on new things. So this made a lot of sense. We have worked on expanding So What?! this year. That is why they wanted to work with us because we could take it to other places and grow off the brand.

As Mike Ziemer has said about So What?!, “It’s bigger than Texas.”

Correct. It’s still safe so they are definitely onto something.

(So What!? will take place at Panther Island Pavilion in Fort Worth on June 2^nd and June 3^rd. Among those that will be featured are: Boys Like Girls, Mayday Parade, Silverstein, The Devil Wears Prada, 30H!3, Iann Dior, Knuckle Puck, Norma Jean, Oh Sleeper, the Secret Handshake, Veil of Maya, Asking Alexandria, P.O.D., Switchfoot, Reliant K, the Amity Affliction, Attila, Currentws, Dying Wish, He Is Legend, Saosin, the Almost, Thousand Below, and many others.)

At the same time, you picked up a co-present with LIVE, the brand behind Tahoe Live, Salt Lake Live, and Park City Live.

Yeah, new events. We did Tahoe Live (on Dec. 15th and 16th, 2023 featuring Rezz, DJ Diesel, Disco Lines, Boogie T, Eazybaked, J. Worra, Kowta b2b Downlo, Levity, Nostalgix, Rusko, Ship Wrek, Truth, Cat Liu, and Daneger). When the guy who does Tahoe Live contacted me, I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ve wanted to do this because most of my shows are in warm weather areas. So a big part of the year’s shows are blocked (booked) out. You can’t do shows in June, July and August. Then it’s too cold to do a show in January, and February. Basically, six months out of the year, you are blocked out. So it’s really cool to do a show at the bottom of a ski resort and be able to then take it around to multiple ski resorts.

Who wants to be watching acts while freezing their ass off?

People are used to it. If they wear the right amount of clothes, drink the right spirits and stuff, and step around enough, they are going to be fine. As long as it’s not a crazy minus 30 below or something like that. If we had something we’d probably have to talk about not doing the show. If it’s going to be in the high 20s to the high 40s, okay. And the shows go from 3 PM to 10 PM. So there’s a lot of time for a lot of daylight.

Tahoe Live is quite different from anything you’ve done.

Yeah. I’m always trying to do new things, and it’s exciting. We hadn’t done a show in the snow before. So we learned something new.

Also quite different from what you’ve done is the Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet, Texas from April 5^th to 9^th.  

Seeing the eclipse at this venue will definitely be a very exciting time for our team.

The April 8th eclipse is expected to last 4 minutes and 20 seconds, and will be seen across Texas and a large swath of North America as it heads east, with the first location in continental North America to experience totality being Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT., according to an information page created by NASA. The eclipse is expected to be visible in Texas at approximately 12:23 p.m. CDT.

The Texas Eclipse Festival event will take place at the 1,200-acre Reveille Peak Ranch deep within the Texas Hill Country — just 60 miles outside of Austin–with 200 acres of camping grounds, and 50 miles of trails.

We looked at a couple of spots, and this one is an hour away from Austin, and an hour away from San Antonio. So there are a lot of flights for people to come in.

The venue is huge. It’s rolling hills, and there are lakes and trees and bluebonnets everywhere which will be in season. The venue is really special.

Reveille Peak Ranch is a working ranch designed for outdoor adventure events.

Yeah, BMX and others do events there as well. They do military training. There are so many different things going on. It’s fully operational year-round. So it’s not like going to a piece of land that doesn’t have anything; that doesn’t have any infrastructure or anything. This is already built out. Still, we have a lot of work to do.

Describe the initial meeting when this eclipse idea came up. “You know there’s an eclipse coming in 2024. Do you think we can build an event around that, Danny? What do you think?” Is that how the discussion went?

It (the conversation) actually started after the last one (eclipse) in Oregon in 2017. People that I know, and people that I worked with, had gone to that (the weeklong Oregon Eclipse Festival 2017 at Big Summit Prairie private ranch attended by 30,000 people) and worked at that show. They were like, “You need to put this on your radar that the eclipse is going to be in Texas in 2024.”

I was like (joking), “Oh yeah. I might be dead by then.” So probably about two years ago, we started having discussions again. Then I was looking at another venue, and my partner Mitch Morales with Probably Nothing (an experiential company that specializes in creating unique activations at large events and festivals) found this venue. So I checked it out. And that was it. Basically the location of the venue, the owner, the look of it, and they already do events there. It is almost a perfect venue for what this is going to be.

The August 2017 eclipse was the first with a path of totality crossing the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. since the solar eclipse of 1918. Also, its path of totality made landfall exclusively within the United States, making it the first such eclipse since the country’s declaration of independence in 1776.

There are so many ancillary aspects of doing the eclipse event with Thought leaders including NASA Astronaut Nicole Stott, Dr. Sian Proctor (SpaceX Astronaut), MAPS founder Rick Doblin, and artists rooted from various cultures from all corners of the world such as STS9, Seth Troxler, and a tribute to Goa Gil. 

Among the production collaborators are Symbiosis (California), Re: birth (Japan), Strawberry Fields (Australia), Earth Frequency (Australia), Bachstelzen (Germany), Beloved (Oregon), Origin (South Africa), Meadows in the Mountain (Bulgaria), Bass Coast (Canada), Ometeotl (Mexico), DisQo PereZoso (Costa Rica), Cosmic Convergence (Guatemala).

We are working with those people who organized the eclipse event in Oregon in 2017. We want to keep Texas Eclipse just as true because I heard that event was amazing, and we really want to keep it true to the roots of that as much as possible. So we have a lot of different collaborators from all over the world, Besides the music, we will have artists, speakers, comedians, interactive areas, and we will even have astronauts. All kinds of different things that we are going to have. It is one of the most challenging things that we have ever done. It’s exciting.

Crowd safety is a primary concern for all promoters today, Texas authorities are very wary of outdoor events. They aren’t likely to understand EDM either though their kids likely attend your concerts.

Crowd safety is a big concern, and we spend a lot of money trying to make sure whatever festival comes through our doors that there are responsibilities that we need to protect, and keep them safe. So we spend a lot of time and effort doing that. Luckily, with our crowds, they are not trying to rush to the front, or trying to rush anywhere. If there’s a bunch of people somewhere, they probably won’t go that way. They will go to the empty space, right? So it’s a little bit different here (in Texas). They don’t have to be close up to the artist to enjoy the show and get the full experience. They can be in the back. They can be in the middle. Some people want to be in the front. But a lot of people aren’t trying to overcrowd a place. We are very lucky on that side.

You did a show at the Austin Music Hall in 1996.

That was my first dalliance with Texas.

You came full force to Texas in 1997 doing shows in Houston and Austin while you were also doing shows in Atlanta, Mississippi, and Louisiana in both legit and underground venues featuring Frankie Bones, Paul Oakenfold, the Crystal Method, Keoki, Clint Mansell, LTJ Bukem, Derrick Carter, Freaky Chakra, and Single Cell Orchestra and others.

What first attracted you to Texas as a promoter?

It made a lot of sense for me because I was living in New Orleans, and they were doing a lot of shows in Texas and we would travel over there. I would promote over there and test different ideas. Kinda see what they were doing.

This was back when practically every major American city had their own promoters. Certainly, that was true of Texas.

It was kind of like the mob. I couldn’t come in from New Orleans and go into Houston or Dallas because they already had all their families there. And they were all fighting. But behind the scenes. I was backing people in Houston, Austin, and Dallas. That was in the mid to late ‘90s Then the market crashed after 9/11. It was already going down; we just couldn’t see it. And hip hop came on so strong in 2001 and all those (traditional) promoters just went away. They either disappeared or stopped doing shows. Also with the government crackdown (on drugs). It just didn’t make a lot of sense with all of the risk, and all the eyeballs on what was going on to be doing shows. That was kind of when I started reaching back out to the promoters, the old promoters, saying, “Hey why don’t we start doing shows again? I will back you.” I didn’t have any money, but I had “pretend money.” I was pretending that I had money. “I will back you, and we will do shows. And when the whole scene comes back, we will do cheap tickets” — and now we are talking about being online because we are starting to give people data. “We will do cheap tickets and when the market comes back we will be able to run it. We will be in charge of it.” That is how I kind of worked my way through checks in Houston, Dallas, Austin San Antonio, El Paso, McAllen, and South Padre. I’ve done probably about 10 or 12 cities in Texas. So Texas has been a good market for me.

As dance music began to evolve from the disco era, there was considerable institutional resistance to rhythmic-based urban music. At that point, you were promoting EDM, which larger promoters weren’t interested in.

Yeah, at that point, nobody wanted dance music. It just wasn’t cool at the time.

By 1990, however, huge-scale, one-off raves were transforming house and techno into events full of lights and lasers, fun-fair attractions, and stellar DJ lineups. However, I can’t see Michael Rapino or Louis Messina being Godfathers of Rave in that time.

(Laughing) Maybe. If I went to those guys, and said, “I want to use your venue.” They would say, “Well, of course.” I worked with Louis’ son Jeff when they opened up to program music in the mid-2000s in Houston. They were down to recommend me. It was still a night for them, but it (dance music) really wasn’t on their radar then. There were some people that were into it at Live Nation and AEG, but mostly it wasn’t a cool thing to do.

You bought back your company from LiveStyle in 2020. Robert, X. Sillerman had rebooted SFX Entertainment in 2012 with a focus on the electronic dance music industry.

Defaulting on a $10.8 million loan after missing an interest payment of $3 million in January 2016, SFX Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the end of the year, the company went private and was renamed LiveStyle, with Sillerman exiting the company.

Under CEO Randy Phillips, LiveStyle emerged as the new corporate umbrella for Disco Donnie Presents, React, Made, and Beatport.

When Sillerman relaunched SFX Entertainment in 2012. Disco Donnie Present was its acquisition after SFX’s revamping.

You then lured (and SFX acquired) EDM promoters such as ID&T, Made Event Totem, React, Flavorus, and Gary Richards’ HARD Events as well as digital music store Beatport. Festivals like TomorrowWorld, and Mysteryland. SFX also acquired the event company Life In Color as well as the Miami Marketing Group which owned 8 nightclubs.

I was there from day one for the second SFX. It was a crazy scenario. I was basically a conduit to bringing in all of these people. I couldn’t tell them who they were meeting with. I paid for them to come to New York, and I didn’t even have a contract or anything like that. I was doing this on a handshake. So I’d pay for them to come to New York. I’d meet with them at a restaurant down the street, and I’d tell them who they were meeting with. Then I would bring them in to meet Bob, and then that meeting would go on. I would then go down and meet with somebody else, and I’d bring that person in as the other meeting was ending. It was a crazy, crazy start from the get-go.

Sillerman founded SFX Broadcasting which came to own more than 70 radio stations in 20 markets which he sold in 1977 to Capstar Broadcasting for $2.1 billion. Then under the SFX Entertainment banner in the late 1990s, Sillerman spent about $2 billion buying promoters and other entertainment properties, including snapping up 11 regional companies and 82 venues.

Sillerman sold SFX Entertainment to Clear Channel Entertainment for an estimated $4 billion in 2005, in hopes of synergizing its live and radio businesses. When that didn’t happen Clear Channel spun off its live entertainment division to form free-standing, publicly traded Live Nation.

Coming from the EDM sector how would they even know about Sillerman who (came from broadcasting, and then the major live music event world?

I had read the book of the first SFX, so I was aware of him. Also because of (being involved with) the State Palace (in New Orleans), I was around that (live music) business and knew what was going on with people getting bought up. So he wasn’t totally off my radar.

But what led to your affiliation with Sillerman who had announced a plan to spend $1 billion on the acquisitions of local and regional dance music promoters?

I had a partnership with Pasquale Rotella, and Insomniac (since 1998) doing (the flagship electronic music festival Electric Daisy Carnival and Nocturnal Wonderland. We did a lot of things (including from 2008-2012, bringing EDC to Dallas, Orlando, Puerto Rico, New York, and Las Vegas, and also bringing Nocturnal Wonderland to Austin, Beyond Wonderland to Seattle, and co-founding Electric Forest in Michigan. We had been working together in some form of fashion since ’98. So it was a good long run

Partnerships are notoriously difficult.

When that went sideways, I bounced out of that and had meetings. I had a debt and I started shopping around this new company with different people who were interested in the project and in financing it. Then I met Bob Sillerman, and he signed off on the whole project, I signed up on the whole roll up right there, and he told me to get to work.

How was Sillerman to deal with?

He was a character, and he took big risks. Some of them worked, and some of them didn’t. He definitely changed my life. I don’t think that anyone would have been able to pull off what he did. I appreciate him, but you didn’t know what you were going to get in these meetings. He would say some stuff that could possibly be offensive to a lot of people. Some people reacted, and got it that he was joking, and others saw him wearing a suit on a Sunday with a fake wig, and a “F— You, You Miserable F—” T-shirt in a meeting, and the reaction was like, “Wow.” You didn’t know what you were going to get or what he was going to say but it definitely kept everyone on their toes.

Gathering that many local and regional dance-music promoters together into a cohesive force would have been a nightmare.

We had meetings with the SFX Entertainment promoters around the world, and you put 20 people in one room with these huge egos, and you ask them to make sacrifices like, “If this guy doesn’t take our offer in Australia, then we aren’t going to book him in New York. We are going to put our foot down.” Then the guy from New York would go, “No I need that guy. I have to protect my business here. I can’t do that.” Putting everybody in a symbiotic room to work together was not as easy a process as we thought it would be.

Who was operating LiveStyle when you bought back your company in 2020?

There was a group of investors that had taken it out of bankruptcy; that had bought I guess the debt. Or whatever was left of the rest of the company, and started running it as LiveStyle,

Why become an independent again?

It was kind of two-fold. I had gotten assurances that I could kind of have first right refusal (on shows). That is I would be able to match any offer that came in for my company. And the time came immediately when everything shut down (with COVID-19). We had a lot of shows on sale, and I had pleaded that everybody would get refunds. And I kind of got called to the principal’s office, and I was told, “Hey you can’t offer everybody refunds.” That was like a red flag to me because my name is on the company, and that was going to be an unacceptable process for me. If we couldn’t give people back their money right now, when could we? That is when they (the fans) needed it (money) most. I was concerned about our fans.

The second part of it was that I saw what happened at Paradigm (Talent) where within a week of closing down (the industry due to COVID-19) people I had been working with for 20 years lost their jobs. I was concerned about the people that I had worked with. Who was expendable? That conversation was already starting to happen two weeks in. So I needed to step in, take control, and make sure that these decisions were made by me.

Paradigm Talent was first to deliver a shock wave throughout the industry when 250 staffers of a work force of 600 were laid off weeks following the President of the United States Donald Trump declaring a National Emergency concerning COVID-19 on Friday, March 13th, 2020, As Paradigm Talent severed its music operation in 2021, Casey Wasserman acquired its North American live music representation business and then launched a new agency Wasserman Music

The unprecedented shutdown/postponement of live entertainment that followed was unanimous, and worldwide, leading to a series of financial moves by others designed to protect their businesses against the closedown as concerts and sporting events were canceled. Everybody was trying to figure out what were the new business dynamics.

Over the years, many promoters that had earlier sold their companies reclaimed them. They found that having an independent niche was the way for them to protect their staff and regional turf and make the most money. Promoters like Danny Zelisko, Louis Messina, Larry Magid, and Michael Cohl.

I’ve heard those stories about people who bought their company back. That was always a goal of mine after I sold it. A lot of people had left. A lot of people went when everything got a little bit tough with the bankruptcy. All of the principals of the SFX 2 company left and I was like, “I’m going to just wait this out because I know I will get it back one day.” So here we are.

Since buying back your company you are among a handful of leading live music independents in the world.

Yeah, there’s a lot of us, and we talk and try to band together a little bit here and see if there’s something that we can protect ourselves from a larger company.

You are from New Orleans.

I was born and raised there. My oldest son Raul just graduated from Tulane, and now he is in Vet school at The Ohio State University. I lived in New Orleans, and I never wanted to leave but I ended up marrying a Puerto Rican. So here we are.

You attended LSU (Louisiana State University) in Baton Rouge. What was your major?

Accounting.

Did you graduate?

Yeah. I was supposed to take over my mother’s CPA firm. I didn’t take a 360-degree or a 180-degree turn. I basically went right down the interstate and got off at an exit.

New Orleans is America’s Party Town, a marvelous place to promote shows.

I was very lucky to be doing shows there. There were so many things going on. There are so many different interesting artists then happening in the city. Nothing to do with the rave scene. I was able to pull them in and expose our crowd to all of these different crazy things. So I was very lucky to be doing shows in New Orleans. Nobody was really paying attention to me.

Easily recognizable by your crazy outfits, you became a key figure of the ecstasy-fueled early 2000s rave scene in the city. Were you a wild character back in the day?

(Laughing) I’ve straddled that line. I can do both. I was a rabble-rouser. I got into some trouble, but I was basically reserved. I was half party man, and half reserved. That is how I was able to work my way through when most of the scene were party people. I was able to do both.

EDM jumped from the underground to the mainstream but when you began it was underground in America. Many DJs didn’t want outsiders to know about it. While the music industry has been too slow to recognize EDM in America, the kids got on board on their own, without radio or TV support.

That was the name of the game back then. I was young and dumb. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

In 1994, you threw your first party, Ultra Phat, in a warehouse space above Café Siam. The following year, you started throwing wildly successful raves at the historic State Palace it would have been like, “Look I’m legit. I have a big theatre here.”

Yeah, that was a game-changer. We were still doing arena stuff, but this was kind of the beginning of seeing how we should be doing things. At the time, they had a lot of concerts going on. Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus and all of these other shows. I was able to sit in on the settlements and notice the business side of it all. That was something I hadn’t thought of before. This was just a hobby for me. But to be able to look at that from the bird’s eye view of what the music business was and realize how far we were away from that; and realize where we needed to go.

EDM is a fairly new music genre. Just under three decades from throwing parties in warehouses. Just look at its history from DEA surveillance that you endured. Meanwhile, EDM splintered into so many subgroups and reached mainstream status, but the genre hasn’t been that well documented. It really was the wild wild west for promoters like you when you started out in 1994, and it stayed that way for many years.

Yeah, look it was going on before I discovered it; from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. There’s been different iteration to it, but it has morphed into what it is now. In the ‘90s, my original events were in warehouses, and they were all ages with no alcohol. We didn’t have any security. We didn’t have any permits. We didn’t have any insurance.

At the same time around the country, there were other young promoters going through what you were going through. Young Turks working in warehouses and random shows.

There were definitely some big scenes all over the country, and we were watching what they were doing; trying to see what artists they were looking at on their fliers. We would send fliers to the record stores in those cities, and they would send fliers back to us for us to distribute. So we were looking at what they were doing, and they were watching what we were doing. I was communicating with a lot of promoters around the country about doing flier swaps, but also gathering information from each other, and trying to share what was going on, and how things were going, and exchanging information, “This guy is great” or “I’ve got this sound guy that you should use” Or this light designer. We were swapping information earlier on about what was going on around the country.

All of you were also hiring artists that weren’t going to cost an arm and a leg. Most were emerging artists. There were very few real stars in the genre in those days. You and your event peers were building your own star system.

Look, I had the choice when I first got into the scene. It was to be a promoter or a DJ. I remember that I used to pay the artists and they would sleep on my couch, and I would make $1,500. I was like “I’m the big boss. I’m the one making all of the big money.” Now I pay the DJ $500,000 and I still make $1,500.

You are joking of course.

Yes. But it was just different then. A lot of them DJs) didn’t have agents yet. A lot of them worked at record stores, and we would call them where they worked, and book them right then on the phone. They would come down and perform with no contract.

At the same time, audiences were also learning about the music and the emerging DJ acts as well. Initially, audiences were happy with most DJs and then popular DJs emerged and more stars came. But in the early years, you’d go to a rave, and the music was there, and was it a good or bad DJ? That was the sole criterion.

It was pre-internet, so they had maybe a rave dance section at Tower Records. They had some very limited CDs in there. But there were no superstar DJs at the time. Basically, we were just basing bookings on, “Oh, this guy is from New York. I’m going to check him out.” We really didn’t know. There wasn’t a lot of information about what songs they had or even what they even played. There just wasn‘t that knowledge, especially not way down in New Orleans, right? They probably knew a lot more, and were more attuned to it all in L.A., and in New York. The DJs knew because they bought the records, and they played the records. So the local DJs knew but the fans going to the shows weren’t really going to see DJ so and so. They were just going to be DJ so and so from Baltimore or Detroit, anywhere that wasn’t New Orleans people would come out and see the artists. If somebody would come all the way from L.A. it was, “I gotta go and see this guy”, right?

There definitely were different sounds coming out of everywhere. Chicago had a sound. L.A. had a sound. New York had its own sound.

While you have hit a career stride in recent years, you work in a youth culture and business. When you started, you were the kid working alongside older people. At 54, you likely are the oldest person in the room at times. Are you comfortable with that?

I didn’t think I would be doing this for this long. And now I don’t want to stop.

Being older in entertainment can be a significant asset due to having a history of building extensive contacts through contested battles.

Yeah. I feel good. I’m working on new projects too. Not all will happen, but we are getting a few new things launched and then we will be good.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Disco Donnie Estopinal, CEO, Disco Presents appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Theresa Vibberts has a solid reputation for being a shrewd businesswoman who has done much in shaping the performing arts sector to compete in today’s competitive consumer marketplace.

Scrappy, classy, and creative, Vibberts is also an astute judge of both the musical merits and business power of her clients—some of the world’s leading instrumental soloists, conductors, and ensembles across a broad spectrum of the performing arts, including classical music, jazz, world music, dance, and more.

In her current position since 2018, Vibberts serves as an artist manager and oversees CAMI Music’s North American business and booking strategies.

At CAMI Music since 2011, Vibberts previously served as Southeast Booking Agent; East Coast & Midwest Booking agent; Artist Manager & East Coast/Midwest Booking; and as the company’s VP, Artist Manager, and National Director of Bookings responsible for booking national tours, producing promotional events, and creating audience development strategies.

Along the way, Vibberts has represented global artists and companies such as the American Ballet Theater & Studio Company, MUMMENSCHANZ, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, Ballet Folklórico de México, Cirque FLIP Fabrique; Lang Lang, Lil Buck, Chad Lawson, Jules Buckley, Ray Chen, Cameron Carpenter, Pablo Sainz Villegas, Savion Glover, the Queen’s Cartoonists, Howard Shore, Max Richter, Sir James Galway, Jon Batiste, and percussionist Antonio Sanchez’s “Birdman Live” film project.

As well, Vibberts has overseen highly successful collaborative partnerships with other agencies on behalf of such artists as Farruquito (with IMG Artists), and Max Richter with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (with Jensen Artists).

Prior to joining CAMI Music, Vibberts was head of production at photographer Danny Clinch’s Three on the Tree Productions in New York where she worked on music videos for Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Blind Melon, and others. She also coordinated the production of festival DVDs for Outside Lands, and Bonnaroo, and worked as a producer on the 2011 film, “Live at Preservation Hall: Louisiana Fairytale,” featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and My Morning Jacket.

Previously, she interned for a year in the music department of “Saturday Night Live.”

Vibberts holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the esteemed Capital University Conservatory of Music in Columbus, Ohio.

At CAMI Music, you both oversee talent management as a general manager, and bookings as an agent. A departure from the industry norm?

Within our slice of the business, within the performing arts world, there are very,

very few people who are both general managers of artists and booking agents. I do that. A wonderful talent, Ted Kurland (CEO, The Kurland Agency), also does that. But there really aren’t that many who play both roles the way that I do.

So the norm in the performing arts world is that there are those who only manage or only book?

In my world, absolutely. That’s usually the way that it works. Somebody will either be a booking agent or a manager. But not both.

As manager, do you negotiate recording, and film & TV-related contracts?

Absolutely. I work with labels and work on recording contracts. I also work on hiring publicists and work with things like podcasts, where I will hire a sub-agent to represent the podcast. I do everything and anything.

Most discussions of the future of performing arts tend to dwell on national and state issues. But the arts are truly local. Every small town in America has an arts program, whether it is theatre, dance, music, or whatever. Meanwhile, arts and cultural organizations have undergone tough economic times in recent years resulting in programming cutbacks, and increased attempts at fund-raising.

None of us have ever experienced anything like the changes of the past 5 years, including the continuing impact of COVID; the breakdown of music distribution that led to the rise of streaming which is now buckling under its own weight; and the convergence of music and social media.

Meanwhile, performers in all genres, and at all levels, face disastrous skyrocketing touring costs —with hotel, food, fuel, vehicle rentals, and personnel costs rapidly rising.

It is insane, especially for those coast-to-coast 7 to 12-week tours. It used to be the longer the tour the lower the costs. You could amortize it, but that’s not even the case anymore. It (touring) is getting prohibitive. The problem with the performing arts specifically, and especially with a dance company or a theatre company, is that they can’t supplement income with album sales or streaming. So, it (touring) is just an extra challenge. It is really hard.

With most rock, country, and hip-hop shows, there are from 15 to 20 to 40 personnel traveling. With a theatrical production or with an orchestra, you are essentially moving a Broadway show from city to city, and at each stage of the process now, the tour company is whittling down its choices.

If a date or two is blown out due to COVID, or by the weather, with a theatrical production or with an orchestra, and if it is halfway through the tour, then that could affect the financial welfare of the entire tour, especially impacting those performers from overseas.

Oh yes because the margins are so tight on the budgets with everything that you just said. As a business, we are all trying to kind of re-invent how we are doing this, and there is just no clear answer. The music industry, it’s not like law or going into medicine, where it’s clear-cut. You become an intern. Then being a resident, and then attending, and then…

You first study, graduate, and then go on to work between 10 to 14 years to become a doctor.

The music industry is not like that. There’s a million different ways to be successful, and in half of those ways, none of us have figured out yet what they are, which is both exciting and fun, but challenging also.

In bringing an international orchestra to America for a tour, if there’s a COVID incident, even one or two dates lost, it could be a nightmare.

Yes, with COVID we have the emergence of a new tour personnel, The COVID Safety Officer. With the Ukrainian Symphony tour, we had as many COVID tests as they could find. We are lucky in that the venues are caught up by now. They have strict protocols in place.

When playing bigger venues, the same union staff is in place whereas with PACs (performing arts centers) you may be dealing backstage with temporary freelance crews or with volunteers.

Yes, it’s true. But the volunteers are there because they want to be there. So they are doing everything that they can so they can be there. And they are doing it the right way. I almost don’t want to say it because I don’t want to jinx it, but we have been relatively lucky in terms of the amount of touring our artists do on the CAMI roster. It’s huge. On the last touring cycle that is ramping up about now, we were pretty lucky. We had a few people that had to leave tours, and we had to replace them, and that is always really challenging. Then we test, and we do the test after the test. There’s no easy way, but we’ve been powering through.

You are well-placed on both the commercial side of live music and in the performing arts world, a sector considered high maintenance, particularly with what has gone on with COVID.  One so exact in detail. You usually aren’t dealing with a few members of a band and their representatives or just a handful of venue bookers.

In normal times, you deal with nearly 40 diverse parts, and you are trying to amass 20 to 40 dates, 18 months out front.

I actually really enjoy the length of time that we have in the performing arts. I started in the rock and roll world (working for photographer Danny Clinch), and before that, I interned at “Saturday Night Live” which is about the quickest turnaround for booking an artist. You are absolutely right about the performing arts in that we are planning one, two years ahead of time, and even three years in advance.

I do everything from booking the great orchestras from all over the world to booking acts for jazz clubs where, of course, the timing is completely different. But I really like the longer booking time. What I like about it is that first of all, it’s incredible for the artist in that they become connected to being like a salaried employee. So they can plan their lives a year or two years ahead. They can plan family vacations, and they know how much they are going to make. It gives them a basic business model much further in advance.

With COVID subsiding have you been able to return to that traditional 8 to 14-month performing arts booking cycle?

I am happy to report, yes. That is shown very clearly by the fact that my entire industry is gearing up right now for fall booking conferences. We will go to regional booking conferences and start planning with promoters and presenters for their Fall 2024, and their Spring 2025. That is what my team is working on right now, and that is what we are selling. The summer is always a little slow, but yes, we are back to that schedule. We are also filling in dates for 6 months from now, 4 months from now, but not a lot. We are really focused on the Fall of ’24, and the Spring of ’25.

The first conference is in Seattle over Labor Day (Sept. 5-8), and that is WAA which is the booking and conference for the Western Arts Alliance (that highlights artists from across dance, theater, and music disciplines).

No doubt you are also preparing for APAP (The Association of Performing Arts Presenters Global Performing Arts Conference, January 12-16, 2024) in New York City?

Exactly. The main conference me and my team prioritize is APAP which is a national booking conference. It is less international. It is more North American which really is where I’ve put most of my energy in the last 10 years. It truly and deeply understands the performing rights market in North America.

The annual APAP conference is the world’s leading forum and marketplace for the performing arts. Based in Washington D.C., APAP has 1,600 organizational and individual members and serves more than 5,000 performing arts professionals every year. Its members range from large performing arts centers in major cities, outdoor festivals, and rural community-focused organizations to academic institutions, as well as artists, and artist managers in all forms of dance, music, and theater.

With COVID, you began working from home.

I did. It was a very tough decision. A few weeks into it, when all of the closures were happening, they gave up the CAMI Music offices. We had these beautiful offices in the middle of Times Square. I had a view of where the ball drops from my office. But the offices were very expensive. Non-essential. Luckily, we got out of the lease which was no easy feat. Since then, the entire CAMI Music team has been working remotely. I like it. I was also able to hire a West Coast agent who lives on the West Coast which sounds pretty smart, but we had never done that before. We’ve got employees in Europe. We’ve got employees in the Midwest. We are all spread out.

I’m talking to you from a big Colonial (house) in Western Massachusetts which my husband Jordy (Jordy Freed, dir. of Partner Marketing & Strategy, Brand & Business Development, Video & Sound Products, Sony Corporation of America), and I recently bought.

It’s a huge lifestyle change.

So you are out of Brooklyn.

For the time being. I lived in Brooklyn for 17 ½ years. During maternity leave, we began working out of our home here in Western Massachusetts which is incredible. It is huge. It has a big yard, and it has nature everywhere. But I’ve really begun to miss the city.

The goal is to save up a get a small studio (in Manhattan) because we are going to be in and out. I still have so much business in New York. That is where all of the shows are. A lot of my clients are there. It just makes more sense coming in and out of Western Massachusetts to have a small studio in Manhattan.

Where are you in Western Massachusetts?

We are in a really nice area called the Highlands in Holyoke. We are right next to East Hampton, and North Hampton. I have an aunt and a cousin in East Hampton.

The Highlands was first known as Manchester Grounds.

It is a beautiful neighborhood. We are within walking distance of the Connecticut River. It is really nice. There’s an Amtrak train station like four minutes away that takes us directly into Penn Station.

CAMI Music was based at 165 West 57th Street in New York City from 1959 to 2005, when it moved to 1790 Broadway, a 1912 building at the corner of 58th Street at Columbus Circle.

Do you miss CAMI Music’s Times Square office?

Yes and no. I miss feeling like I am at the center of the universe, and I also had a great view of Central Park. I don’t miss commuting in and out of Times Square twice a day. I was coming in from Brooklyn. It was an hour and a half from Park Slope. I would get off at Times Square, right there on Broadway. Or sometimes, I would get out at Bryant Park, and walk from there. The commute on the subways from Brooklyn to Times Square was not so bad. It was the one block that I had to walk from the subways to my offices in Times Square, navigating all of the tourists that were stopping, taking photos, and asking questions. That took an hour in itself.

My wife and I recently stayed at the New York Marriott Marquis on Broadway, and to walk out into Times Square was just overwhelming.

It really smacks you in the face.

After 9/11 New York City was a more hospitable city. but in the past two years, it has become grittier.

I know. I can feel it. And it has changed. It is not the city that I fell in love with. I definitely hear what you are saying.

A year ago, you hired an agent on the West Coast.

Yes, I have a West Coast agent Daren Fuster, and he is fabulous. What is unique about him, and the CAMI Music model, is that he actually lives on the West Coast.

Where is Daren based? 

Believe it or not, he’s in the Pacific North West in Oregon, just outside of Eugene.

Hiring an agent that lives on the West Coast is a first for CAMI Music.

Yeah, it’s a new school of thought. COVID was, of course, a terrible thing but one of the silver linings was how practical, and how helpful remote work can be. It is wonderful to have a West Coast agent on the West Coast that keeps the same hours. And Daren is great. He will drive, and see presenters. He will go skiing with presenters on weekends. That’s really cool.

CAMI Music also has personnel in the Midwest and Europe as well?

We had an agent who was living in Idaho, but now he’s spending his time between Idaho and Paris. That’s Adam Tilley. He is kind of bouncing around. He does a lot of work for us with our European-based artists. And then we have artist manager Javier Manzana, based in Valencia, Spain, who represents a lot of our conductors.

With much of the performing arts sector shuttered by COVID—as well as Columbia Artists Management (CAMI) closing down in 2020 after 90 years, and the buyout of another leading management agency, Opus 3 Artists, by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music the same year, what we witnessed was an overall restructuring of the American performing arts business.

Opus 3 Artists traces its roots to the pioneering role of the legendary impresario and artist manager Sol Hurok between the 1920s and 1970s. A successor organization, ICM Artists, was formed in 1976 as a sub-division of International Creative Management, and the company became independent again as Opus 3 Artists in 2006.

The shakeup actually started further back with the death of CAMI’s chairman and CEO Ronald Wilford in 2015. Following the death of “classical music’s biggest power broker,” there was the closure of Columbia Artist Management (CAMI), a giant in the performing arts business for 90 years.

Columbia Artist Management (CAMI) served an unsurpassed roster of top instrumentalists, conductors, opera singers, and other vocalists, orchestras, theatrical, musical attractions, and dance ensembles.

The agency worked with many of the greatest artists ever to perform on the concert stage, including sopranos Leontyne Price, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Renata Tebaldi; mezzo–soprano Risë Stevens; contralto Marian Anderson; tenors Jussi Björling, Mario Lanza, John McCormack, Lauritz Melchior, and Richard Tucker; bass–baritone George London; bass Paul Robeson; pianists Van Cliburn and Vladimir Horowitz; violinists Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin; cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; conductors Herbert von Karajan, Eugene Ormandy, Antal Dorati, and Otto Klemperer; composer–conductors Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Igor Stravinsky; and composer-conductor–pianists Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

As COVID deepened, it became clear that all talent agencies were going to have much-reduced income. So the question became, “What do we do?”

I couldn’t agree with you more. It was a very shocking time. With Ronald passing there was no one person to really fill that role. For example, there’s the board at CAMI Music which is run and owned in partnership between the president of CAMI Music Jean-Jacques Cesbron, and Ronald’s son Chris Wilford. I didn’t get to work with Ronald Wilford for very long, unfortunately, but what I learned from him, and I saw through working for him, I see very much in my boss Jean-Jacques Cesbron. I also think you see it in other leaders in the field like (former CAMI personnel) Tim Fox (now at AMP Worldwide) or Doug Sheldon (Sheldon Artists), people that have gone off, and taken different paths.

The Columbia Artists Management (CAMI) closure after 90 years was one of the most shocking, and disruptive moments in American, if not global entertainment.

It was an institution. For 90 years, and to go belly-up in the pandemic, it shook our business as a whole. I found out only 24 hours before it was announced. CAMI Music had spun off a year prior. In 2004, CAMI Music was a subsidiary of Columbia Artists, and a few years later we became completely autonomous. We were our own company but, of course, with the same board still run Chris Wilford. Chris is very hands-off with the company, and he understands the music business. He was a touring musician, and he is a wealth of music knowledge. He has always been a great supporter of me, and all of CAMI Music, and what we do.

It was really hard watching our former parent company go under. CAMI Music was special because we were a separate entity.  We are only 15 employees spread across the world. We are lean and mean and that saved us. Being international, being smaller, more boutique. My team is myself and four others.

Another industry-wide disruption happened in 2016 when CAMI’s Theatricals Department shut down. All the staff were let go, except its president Gary McAvay who had been at CAMI for over 40 years. He passed away in 2022 in New York City at 68. He had represented hundreds of titles and artists, including “Cats,” “Stomp,” “Chicago,” “Annie,” “Carousel,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “Grease,” and “Starlight Express.”

Gary died last February right before I was to meet with him in Memphis for a production (“Memphis Jookin’: The Show”) that he had been instrumental in helping us create at CAMI Music. He is sorely missed. He was a powerhouse. When Columbia Artists (CAMI) went under, Gary came to CAMI Music as a partner, and he brought some of his projects over to us, including “STOMP,” “The Four Phantoms,” and “Piaf, No Regrets.” Me and my team of bookers represented those projects for only a short time, unfortunately. He became one of our producers for the production with Lil Buck, an incredible dancer based out of Memphis. We were set to go, and on the eve of production with our partner The Orpheum in Memphis last February, Gary passed away about a week before. So he never got to see that production that he worked on.

(“Memphis Jookin’: The Show” was conceived and choreographed in part by its star, renowned local dancer Charles “Lil Buck” Riley, recognized as a celebrated exponent and importer of what is known as “jookin,’” an outgrowth of the “gangsta walk” and “buckin'” street-dance styles that accompanied the rise of Memphis hip-hop in the 1990s. The production made its world premiere on Feb. 11, 2022, at The Orpheum in Memphis.)

“Memphis Jookin’” toured nationally.

There were two sold-out shows at Lincoln Center last February. We are currently touring “Memphis Jookin,’” but we are looking to do some bigger projects. Lil Buck is part of the CAMI Music family. We love him, and we will keep creating opportunities for him.

Even prior to COVID, the entire arts ecosystem had evolved far beyond recognition. Dates were once traditionally booked as part of a subscription series. That aspect of the business had largely disappeared. Also, for decades, PACs booked shows directly, often risking a loss that was usually underwritten by sponsorship or endowments. As those waned pre-COVID, PACs began doing more commercially viable shows and encouraging co-promotes.

From experiences with COVID-related uncertainties, and the cancellations of tours and shows, have new business templates evolved in booking performing arts tours?  

Absolutely, and they are still evolving day by day. When COVID hit, I always say I have never worked so hard to lose money in my life. It was exactly what you said. It was days and days of—I would never say canceled as you said—but we postponed shows. Every day, I’d wake up– and at CAMI where I’ve got a roster of 60 artists that I am directly responsible for touring anywhere from 5 to 50 dates a season—and I was postponing all day. And nobody really knew when it would end. It really became the manager’s job to stay positive, and to come up with some set of plans for postponement. Some were for a year. Some tours we postponed by 6 months.

Now we are seeing the result of those postponements, which is great. I have artists that have finished touring; some that are currently touring, and many of those dates were pre-pandemic.

With the bookings, it changed more because audiences behavior is changing. What we saw before the pandemic was a subscription model, where audience members were buying tickets long in advance, and were always showing up for shows. That is changing. We are not seeing advance ticket buyers the way that we did pre-pandemic. It is more like a commercial venue or a jazz club being walk up. Which is interesting, but it is harder to anticipate than what we are used to in the performing arts, fan-find subscription model.

What has also changed is the level of patronage for many PACs. When bringing in international orchestras and dance companies in past years PACs were able to assemble a high number of donors to cover costs, Much of that sponsorship has dried up.

Yeah, touring international orchestras has always been part of the lifeblood of the performing arts, and even before the pandemic one of the most difficult tours to accomplish logistically, Not CAMI Music tours, but just in the recent season we saw the Munich Orchestra tour canceled, and the Budapest Orchestra tour canceled.

A few months ago, I and my CAMI Music team finished touring the Ukrainian National Orchestra. It played everywhere from all over the country to the State Theatre in New Jersey, and Carnegie Hall in New York. It was subsidized, and we worked really hard to accomplish that.

But you are right, the donors that would put forth so much money to subsidize international orchestras are dwindling, and we are seeing fewer international orchestra series all over the country.

As well, the impact of PBS on the sector has greatly waned. At one point PBS was instrumental in breaking new stars well-suited to the performing rights sector. Today there don’t seem to be similar mediums or platforms that can create star vehicles in that world.

I disagree. This is something that I have been paying a lot of attention to lately, specifically in classical music. NPR, PBS, and competitions, those are what we used to look to in order to sign the new great classical star. I don’t believe that is true anymore. What I believe now is that you look at the digital streaming platforms, and you look to who is streaming Peaceful Piano. Classical music is being consumed. So who are the artists getting the most plays on playlists like (Spotify’s) Peaceful Piano?

One major difference between the performing arts world, and other sectors is that in pop, rock, country, and hip-hop, the goal of most artists is to be a big success; to be famous, if you like. That is many artists’ idea of what success is. But in the performing arts world, that is not necessarily what success is deemed to be. Success may be if the artist or a conductor is able to tour once or twice a year on their terms, and are able to perform and record the music that they want to, and collaborate with the people that they want to. That’s success on their terms. Many of them don’t seek or need major contracts or celebrity status.

So there’s different levels of career advancement being considered when you first meet with a potential client in the performing arts world to what their goals are.

Yeah, the definition of success, I couldn’t agree with you more. But it is different from artist to artist. How a conductor might define his or her success will be different from an instrumentalist, which will be different from an opera singer. So it is really different from artist to artist. Having initially studied classical music, and then going into rock and roll, and moving back into the performing arts, I understand that at the core of every discussion around the definition of success the guiding light is artistic integrity. Talking about your technique, your skill, what it means, what you can contribute to society, to communities, which I never felt was as a dominant a force in that regard in the pop and rock world. It was streaming numbers, major album deals, and music videos. That stuff matters. It definitely matters, and it plays a role in the performing arts, particularly with instrumentalists, but there is a lot more focus on artistic integrity and talent, and the hope that they will be defined and experienced through audiences.

Here’s another difference with performing arts. In general, the median age of emerging artists in pop, rock, country, and hip-hop skews far younger than the performing arts world, though there are instrumentalists and dancers of all ages as well. In other words, performers are viewed as being too old after reaching 30 in other genres. So there’s a contrast between the differences in ages with different goals.

Yes, we are trying to address that now. We want artists like violinist  Ray Chen who has quite a young following. You see that in the way that he will do competitions (with non-professionals) that play with him, (along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) at the Hollywood Bowl. It will be all digital, and young people submit videos online.

Former child prodigy Ray Chen, the 34-year-old Taiwanese-Australian is renowned for his savvy use of social media in making classical music more accessible to young people and expanding the reach of the art form.

Similarly, pianist/composer Chad Lawson is hailed as a streaming star creating classical music for the Spotify generation.

That is exactly right. Chad Lawson is a perfect example. As a1 Universal Decca artist, his music cuts across classical and jazz charts. He recently had five songs in the Top 25, and that was across jazz and classical. And his music is being consumed by people aged 25 to 40. That is his key demographic. We are seeing a lot of his music being consumed Monday to Thursday nights. We think that it is college students listening to piano music while they are studying.

Leading up to the birth of your son Max being born on May 31^st, Chad’s music was a constant in your households.

Chad is an artist that I listen to. Not because he’s my client. but his music calms me down so much. This kid, yeah. My greatest hope is that he is going to be a percussionist like I was, but he will know music. That’s for sure.

Like so many I discovered Chad through Spotify.

I’m not surprised at all. (Streaming music) is creating a new consumer. If I am looking to see who I should find as a classical artist, I’m going to go to the record labels, and I am saying, “Who are your greatest streaming artists right now?” People are listening to classical music across Spotify, Apple Music, and all of the digital streaming platforms. Now what I am working intensely on trying to do is find a way to marry that streaming consumer with the live ticket buyer for performing arts centers. It is a very hard uphill battle, but that is the future. Getting someone to buy a ticket for an artist that starts by them listening to Spotify.

Streaming, and even more so, social networking, moves faster than word of mouth in the past. But you also have to look for a “sticky” factor with talent. Artists don’t mean anything commercially unless you are able to sell tickets to their performances.

I completely agree, and that is the tricky part. People, especially if they are independent, have gotten so used to media assets in the comfort of their own homes. Me included. I’m part of the problem. But there truly, truly is no replacement for live music. I remember right when the pandemic started, (American jazz keyboardist and composer) Chick Corea who I represented, was in our office, and nobody knew what was going to happen, and Chick Corea said, “Since the dawn of time one human has been entertaining another human. A cave man danced around the fire while other cavemen watched and clapped. That will never change. Humans will always entertain other humans.”

That moment has stuck with me, and I believe it. And I am working toward that goal every day.

You represented Chick until his passing in 2021.

I was with him and his wonderful wife Gayle when he performed at the 2020 Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony with his Spanish Heart Band and won for or Best Latin Jazz Album for “Antidote.”

You seem to represent disparate acts that might choose to play anywhere.

Pre-pandemic I represented guitarist Pablo Sainz Villegas. Years ago, he did a concert on a floating stage on the Amazon River with Plácido Domingo. So you are right. There’s no cap on how crazy you can get with an instrumentalist in terms of where they can perform. I also represent ABT Studio Company (the American Ballet Theater & Studio Company), and they have certain requirements. They need a stage. They need wing space. But we still find ways to do outdoor shows with them.

What are the challenges touring soloists like pianist Chad Lawson or organist Cameron Carpenter, as opposed to a full company? Are there different challenges involved?

Sort of. It is easier to tour a soloist. It’s interesting that you bring up Cameron Carpenter because he’s arguably one of the great exceptions to that rule, simply because he is so specific to what he plays, which is a pipe organ. For years, we had to tour a pipe organ which was his own design, and the only one of its kind. It was like a rock and roll load-in with two full semi trucks, 88 speakers, and 8 sub-woofers. It was incredible. We toured it all over the country, all over the world.

A dance company like the Cirque company (Cirque FLIP Fabrique), needs to be routed to tour to make it financially possible, and successful which means you are not just selling an artist, and the idea to a venue. You are also selling the timing and a specific date. It’s two-fold. It has to be routed throughout the country with a perfectly traveled schedule.

Whereas a pianist like Chad Lawson, I can’t book him in Berlin, to fly out there and then fly home. Does he like to do that? No. I block the time so he can maximize his time in different parts of the world. Recently, he performed at the Royal Albert Hall (in London), and then he went to Amsterdam, and next he went to Berlin and Cologne. Then he was able to go on Spring Break with his kids.

Solo conductors are much easier to tour than big, big companies that have buses and trucks that you have to keep on the road, and you have to clump it  (dates) together in the right way.

You have worked with the great Spanish flamenco dancer Farruquito, heir to one of the most renowned gypsy flamenco dynasties in Spain. He served three years in prison for manslaughter for a traffic accident, and he had some difficulty in obtaining a U.S. work visa.

That’s an interesting relationship. It is a partnership between CAMI Music and IMG, which are competing agencies. But his manager is a friend, so we have used the CAMI Music booking team, my team, to do his last several tours.

Canadian composer/conductor Howard Shore is a natural client for you given his stint as the original musical director of “Saturday Night Live” (from 1975-1980) and being the composer of the scores of “The Lord of the Rings,” and “The Hobbit” film trilogies. In addition to his three Academy Awards, Howard has also won three Golden Globe Awards and four Grammy. Awards.

Oh, he is incredible. And working with him is very full circle. I booked “The Music of Howard Shore” at Symphony Hall in Boston, and Howard has deep connections to Boston, of course. So we were sitting there having a coffee or a drink or something, and I got to tell him, “Howard, when I worked at ‘Saturday Night Live,’ there was a little picture of you taped above my desk that nobody had moved since the start of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ And it was like this temple to you. Everyone would look at it, and I stared at it every day. Now here we are, you are doing the music of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ and we are having a brew in Boston which is really cool.”

I knew him when he was in the Toronto band Lighthouse in the late ‘60s.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he’s still chugging along. We are doing “Lord of the Rings” projects all over the world. We just did “Lord of the Rings” at Tanglewood.

Howard has been fighting unauthorized “Lord of the Rings” presentations in Europe and Ireland. He has taken legal action to prevent similar unofficial concerts in the future.

Yes, he put out a pretty adamant statement about it, and we are working on it.

A statement posted on Howard Shore’s official website reads: “We feel it is necessary to alert fans and followers of The Lord of the Rings in Concert that there are a number of concerts that have no association with Howard Shore in the UK and Germany being billed as “Der Herr der Ringe und der Hobbit” or “The Music of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit” produced by Star Entertainment.

“Please be warned, Howard Shore has nothing to do with these concerts. There is a current lawsuit in process to have the concerts stopped. The music that is being played is assembled from unauthorized… arrangements and not at the standard of quality insisted upon by Howard Shore.”

Will Sir James Galway (popularly known as, “The man with the golden flute) tour again? He is now 83. He and his wife, American-born flutist Lady Jeanne Galway, keep quite busy inMeggen, Switzerland with The Galway Flute Academy with daily master classes, weekend residencies, and 10-day flute festivals.

I think if it was up to him he never would have stopped touring (due to COVID restrictions), and he would still be touring. His last date was in New York with Lizzo at the 2023 Met Gala (April 30th). He definably will be back. We are talking about some ideas. He called me recently. His last big tour was his 80^th birthday celebration tour. He toured all over the country, everywhere from West Palm Beach to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and his last date of the tour was right before the (air) flights began to shut down for the pandemic. He made it through a national tour, and it was great, On every single , the venues sent these huge cakes for his 80^th birthday celebration. He has a gorgeous home with his wife Jeanne Galway in Switzerland, and from there they run their flute academy which takes up a lot of his time. But he does want to tour. He’s ready to hit the road again.

As multi-tasker you also work with celebrated dance companies, theatrical productions, orchestras, and conductors.

Yeah, it is so funny because I definitely am not an expert on anything, but I know just enough about every genre in the performing arts. I love that term “performing arts” because it can really mean anything, and we show that in our roster. We recently produced an immersive show, “Monet’s Garden” (that ran November 1, 2022 – April 16, 2023, in downtown Manhattan). It had been exhibited by its head producer, and our partner, Nepomuk Schessl, long before New York, all over Europe.

I just missed the show when I was in New York in June.

Oh no. We extended it three times because sales were so strong. it was in the oddest on Wall Street in the Seamen’s Bank Building (at 30 Wall St. between Nassau St. and William St.). Last summer, I spent several sweaty weekends running around New York City, going into abandoned buildings and spaces in Times Square, and the abandoned Manhattan Mall, looking for the right space. It was pretty tricky to go into some of these places, but we settled on Wall Street.

“Monet’s Garden”is 360-degree exhibition staged with state-of-the-art multimedia technology, which allows visitors to immerse themselves in the world and famous artworks of the French painter and founder of impressionist painting, Claude Monet.

It’s a beautiful, beautiful production. It really is. It is really beautiful.

So “Monet’s Garden” is still touring?

Correct. We are planning it for some cities which I’ll keep under wraps for now. Andreas and Nepomuk Schessl are amazing promoters for large art-scale shows. They brought us “Monet” for New York. So we, CAMI Music, produced it, and we are working now to help with ­­presenting it in more cities in the U.S., and globally.

Your role in performing artists today is far different from your earlier days working for photographer Danny Clinch’s Three on the Tree Productions which specialized in music documentaries, and music videos including with Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, and Blind Melon.

It was incredible. It was always about music, and I learned so much. I was with Danny for years. It was a great time. I ended up being production savvy and it changed my life.

And you were having the time of your life.

I was. Yeah, it was an interesting trip for me. The world of Danny was a very different world from going to APAP wearing a badge around my neck. APAP was a new world to me with my rock and roll background

How did you land that job with Danny after working at “Saturday Night Live?”

The internship at “Saturday Night Live” was a game changer for me, but so was working for Danny. He really took a risk with me. He knew that I had a music background, but I didn’t know much about film. I was recommended by someone at SNL. Danny had a wildly successful photo studio, but when I met him, he was starting up his film studio. That was the time that Pearl Jam had filmed their documentary (“Immagine in Cornice” in 2007) in Italy, and they needed someone for digital imaging. Of course, I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that I would figure it out.

Of course, I did.

We also shot a documentary in 2011 with My Morning Jacket, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band called “Live at Preservation Hall: Louisiana Fairytale.”

I recall My Morning Jacket and New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band touring together. MMJ’s frontman Jim James had earlier collaborated with the jazz group on a pair of tracks for a 2010 compilation, “Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall & the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program,” that also included their link-ups with Tom Waits, Merle Haggard, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Ani DeFranco, Pete Seeger, and others.

I got to work with Ben Jaffe (the creative director of Preservation Hall who plays tuba and double bass with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band), and all of the guys in Preservation Hall Jazz Band, I felt a deep connection to the way that they spoke about jazz; the way they spoke about history; the way that they felt about their contributions; and the meaning of their music, and the entertainment that they create. It made me really miss the art which is where I started as a classical percussionist.

How long did you intern at “Saturday Night Live?”

It was about a semester. I would have loved to have stayed on. I was lucky to be offered a position to come back after the semester as an employee, but I decided to finish college which, of course, I’m very glad that I did.

You had been at university before coming to New York?

Yeah, I went to a small conservatory in Columbus, Ohio, the Capital University Conservatory of Music.

There you studied music business and percussion.

Yeah, I was a percussionist. I was in the percussionist group playing drums.

You didn’t graduate. You came to New York.

Yeah. When I moved to New York, I had just turned 21. I rode in with a broken-down car with my boxes of things. I found a hotel in Brooklyn that let me put three months’ rent across four credit cards, and I got a job waiting tables on the off weeks from SNL. So I started working for “Saturday Night Live” just having turned 21 from Columbus, Ohio. It was quite a time for me.

You then returned to Columbus to graduate?

Yes. I was in a music business program, and my professor was wildly supportive for me taking a semester off and going to “Saturday Night Live.” So I came back to school. By that point, I was sold on New York. So I did something very, very hard which was graduating conservatory early. There’s no music program out there that is easy. They are all very intense. They are all very difficult. And they are all very expensive. I put myself through school, working several jobs. But I had so much support from my professor to graduate early with work-study programs. Then I just high-tailed it back to New York, and I started working for Danny.

You aren’t originally from Ohio.

I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico then my mom who was pretty young, took me to Columbus where I lived with my grandmother, my mother and my great-grandmother for years. Then we moved around Ohio and then I went to college and then I got to New York. So yeah, I grew up in Columbus, Ohio.

And that’s pretty redneck.

And it wasn’t the nice part. So yeah.

You joined CAMI Music as a regional booking agent in August 2011.

I did. It’s so funny because I had no idea about what the business of the performing arts was.

C’mon over to the dark arts.

(Laughing) I loved working with Danny, but the business was changing. I wasn’t on the photo side, I was on the film side, and money for music videos and music documentaries was drying up. So I just started meeting everybody. I met publicists. I met label executives.

Then you met with CAMI Music.

I will never forget that. I literally sat in Ronald Wilford’s office, and I said, “I love what you do. It is very interesting to me, but I have never done this before.” I had no idea if this was going to work out. Jean-Jacques Cesbronn said, “Well, I’ve got a good feeling about you. You are hired.”

And that was 11 years ago.

What was the first project you worked on at CAMI Music?

The first artist I really directly became involved with creatively was the dancer Savion Glover.

The rock star of the tap. One none of the best tap dancers America has ever produced.

I’ll bet you don’t know that Savion’s grandmother Anna Lundy Lewis, who first noticed his musical talent, was the minister of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark where Whitney Houston was a choir girl. As was her music celebrity cousins, Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick previously. Whitney’s celebrated singing mother Cissy Houston is a lifelong active member of the congregation, and for more than 50 years, she has led the 200-member Youth Inspirational Choir at the church.

Oh my. All the years that I worked with Savion I didn’t know that. It’s so funny that never came up. Another fun fact about Savion is that I met my husband Jordy, then a jazz publicist for DL Media, at a Savion show when I was with Savion at The Blue Note in New York 11 years ago.

You almost immediately connected with Savion because the two of you discovered that you shared several points of mutual interest.

We found a connection because he considered himself a percussionist more than a dancer. So we really understood each other on that level. He was very, very attached to the world of jazz, and so was I. He wanted to do well as I did because I didn’t come from anything except waiting tables and learning from my mom who sold used cars. In the performing arts the word, “sales” is still sort of an ugly word, but I have never shied away from it. I love making money for my artists; whether it’s selling the right contract deal or selling the right production, I am always happy to do it. Savion really got excited with that approach. And it worked out really well. We did a show called “STePz” that toured all over the country. We did a holiday show. It was awesome.

I have found over the years that few performers know or understand the inner business machinations of entertainment. Nor do they often care to know.  At one time, an artist in any genre might proclaim, “I record my music. and I tour. That’s what I do.”

They might then be told, “Well, we need you for some marketing, and do some interviews.”

They’d say, “Okay, I’ll do that.”

Now a performer has to be aware of so many different parts of their career. Things that labels and music publishers used to take care of, but don’t now do due to consolidations and eventual downsizing.

I couldn’t agree with you more. This might sound radical, but I believe it is actually criminal that students, even to this day with the amount of money that they are spending on music degrees, and they are not being given the tools they need to find a certain level of business success for themselves.

Performers must now be aware of the workings of recording, video and podcast production, bookings, live events, music publishing, social media, marketing, radio, and film and television production.

Yeah, it’s incredibly challenging, and I hope to be proven wrong in this but from what I see since graduating from a conservatory of music is that these educational institutions are not doing their job, and I think that it really hurts our ability to hire workers sometimes. You don’t study the performing arts if you are poor. You do it because you had piano lessons growing up, and you got to go to concerts.

Creatives, and not just their managers, must understand that they must learn the business. It’s like operating a small retail store. They need to know the costs and the avenues of distribution for what they are selling.

What about Black Box royalty payments in which unmatched royalties are distributed on a market share basis to music publishers or to those songwriters that do not have an exclusion clause in their contracts.

Or checking on the status of orphan works whose owners are hard or impossible to identify or locate?

Both cause the creator, writer, or artist to lose money, and not receive the proper monetary credit that their music has generated.

I’ll tell you right now that they are not being taught any of that. I speak at everything from the Lang Lang Foundation to my alma mater, the graduation class at Capital University Conservatory of Music, and I feel that schools hate me because I am mostly saying, “You are not learning everything that you need to learn. Study the business.” I’ll tell you when I find an artist at this level, at a CAMI Music level, they have to be able to advance their career for me to even consider them. And they are not being given those tools. They just can’t be instrumentalists anymore. They just can’t be dancers anymore. They have to be their own publicist. They have to be their own social media director.

Many entertainers say they don’t want to get involved with the business side of music but that’s how they get sandbagged in their careers.  By misjudging, and misunderstanding management, music publishing, and recording contracts.

I tell performers to check out Todd and Jeff Brabec’s essential industry legal guide, “Music Money And Success: The Insider’s Guide to Making Money in the Music Business,” and Donald Passman’s “All You Need To Know About The Music Business.” Both books break down music industry information to very basic, easy-to-understand forms.

I feel like the more I learn, and the more I do this, the more that I don’t know.

Two decades ago clients or venue owners wouldn’t likely call you after hours. And certainly not on weekends. Working today, even from home, you have to be available almost 24/7.

It is really challenging. It is really, really changeling, especially because I have business that is happening all over the world. So I wake up at 7 A.M. to a barrage of texts and emails from Europe, and then I stay up late at night dealing with Asia. In the middle of it, I’ve got American hours. It’s a challenge, and it is something that I definitely feel that I am a part of the problem.

Working directly with artists in the past as a manager and music publisher, I had early morning hours calls from the UK when a client was locked out of a hotel room, and when a club refused to pay them.

So you know. It’s very stressful for myself and my entire team. I wish I knew a solution.

How do you plan holidays?

I just do. I take holidays. It just means I don’t jump on a Zoom when I’m on vacation. My favorite hobby is scuba diving. I tell my clients, “You are never more out of office than when you are 100 feet below the ocean’s surface.” That is when I’m out of touch.

Where do you and Jordy scuba?

We scuba mostly in a small island off of Honduras called Roatán (65 km. off the northern coast of Honduras, located between the islands of Utila and Guanaja). It is the second-largest barrier reef in the world. It is the best place in the world. We have made so many great friends in Roatán. The ocean, the coral, and the life there is incredible. The locals are incredible. We were on a dive boat several miles off the coast of Roatán when we first heard the word COVID. We were able to fly home, and then the world shut down a week later.

In Dec 2015, you survived a three-story apartment fire which erupted around 1:35 A.M. at 30 Richardson Street in Williamsburg, a block from McCarren Park. The fire quickly grew to a five-alarm blaze as about 200 firefighters rushed to put out the flames for nearly three hours. A man and a woman were killed. Firefighters found the male victim hours after finding the woman on the second floor.

You were inside your third-floor apartment when you woke to the sound of shattering windows in your kitchen. You were wearing a sleep mask and

you had earplugs in too, but you also heard your neighbor banging on the door and screaming. So you got down on the floor below the smoke and crawled over to the door.

Afterward, many of your artists and colleagues supported you because you lost everything. How do you survive that, and go on? That’s a tough one.

It is tough. It was really hard. I lost literally everything. I crawled out in the clothes that I was sleeping in. Everything was destroyed. This included an entire wall of photographs from my time at “Saturday Night Live.” All of the signed “Thank you Theresa” notes from Neil Young, and Sheryl Crow. All of the sheet music that I wrote in college. A snare drum that I had built myself. My grandmother’s engagement ring. It was really hard, but I had a slightly challenging childhood so I knew what it felt like to not feel safe in my home. So I had already developed the tools to deal with that, and I had my community of friends in Brooklyn, thank goodness. Also, the performing arts industry rallied around me.

Your clients and others supported a GoFundMe site on your behalf.

It was crazy. I’ve always said that if I was still working in rock and roll, I probably never would have gotten that kind of community support. Larry, it was really funny. For the first four months after the fire, every piece of clothing I wore was some kind of performing arts T-shirt. People were just sending me swag for months and months.

Here it is seven years later, and you are married with a new baby while living and working from a beautiful Colonial house in Western Massachusetts.

A mother and working lady with it all.

I’m supposed to make my first international trip in a couple of months. (Laughing) Oh my gosh, I don’t know how I am going to manage it.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: CAMI Music’s Theresa Vibberts appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Steve Martin is revered in the global live music sphere.

Consistently over nearly five decades with the most genre-bending artist rosters of any North American agent, he may well be one of the shrewdest talent agents in the sector with clients renowned for helping redefine contemporary music.

In 2021, Martin and fellow booking veteran Andy Somers launched Paladin Artists, an independent talent and literary agency that was strengthened with strategic partnership alliances with Wayne Forte of Entourage Talent Associates, and Karrie Goldberg of The Kagency.

Focusing on music touring, live events as well as theatrical and literary representation, Paladin Artists has offices in New York, Los Angeles, and London.

Martin got his professional start in music in 1979 with New York concert promoter New Audiences which booked Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Dire Straits, Weather Report, and Miles Davis in New York, Boston, and Washington.

He then briefly worked as an agent at Magna Artists in New York in 1982 before starting his own independent Manhattan shop, The Music Business Agency (MBA).

While American booking agencies mostly balked at booking at what they considered niche acts in the ‘70s, Martin established a different business model with MBA signing Billy Bragg, Jimmy Cliff, Fela, Yellowman, Toots, and the Maytals, author Robert Hunter, Jorma Kaukonen, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Hot Tuna.

He operated MBA for 7 years before selling to the William Morris Agency (WMA) in 1989 and becoming one of WMA’s principal booking agents.

He left William Morris in 1994 to spearhead the fledgling New York office for the UK-based The Agency Group as president of its  North American operations.

In 2013, Martin became VP, World Wide Concerts at APA Talent and Literary Agency, working alongside Bruce Solar and Steve Lassiter, after being named partner in 2015.

Veteran agent Andy Somers founded Bandwagon in 1984, and repped artists such as the Circle Jerks, Megadeth, and many others. He reopened Bandwagon in 1998. He also worked at Frontier Booking International in 1987, Triad Artists in 1990, ICM in 1992, The Agency Group in 2000, becoming a senior VP, co-helming its Los Angeles operation, leaving just prior to the company being acquired by United Talent Agency in 2015; and then joined the APA Agency as president of concerts in 2014.

Paladin Artists’ valued team also includes: Dave Kaplan, Chyna Chuan-Farrell, Seth Rappaport, Steve Ferguson, Kath Buckell, Sara Schilevert, Brandon Zmigrocki, Winston C. Simone, Kath Buckell James Bauman, Christian Ellett, Andy Howie Gold, and Katie Gamelli who leads the company’s Theatrical Literary division.

Martin’s personal roster consists of Billy Bragg, BLKBOK, Crash Test Dummies, Bruce Cockburn, Chris Difford, David Gilmour, Rick Wakeman, Robert Fripp, King Crimson, Surfbort, Buster Poindexter / David Johansen, Dream Theater, Hot Tuna, Janis Ian, Jools Holland / Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Jorma Kaukonen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lewis Watson (shared with Steve Ferguson) Loreena McKennitt, Porcupine Tree, Ray Davies, Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul, The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa, and The Estate of Robert Hunter.

In the face of the global touring business contracting and consolidating, as well as agencies increasingly seeking to offer clients ancillary services, you are working alongside people who have gone through similar multi-layered business situations. You have worked in specific different genres for years, but others at Paladin Artists have done so as well.  

We definitely have. Somebody was asking me about the company, and I said that it is a combination of  Seal Team Six and The Bad News Bears. That is who we are here. It is Andy, Wayne, Karrie, and I with a lot of young scrappy, energetic people who don’t know how to fail, and we are going to show them how not to fail.

There’s a wealth of talented staff and headliners at Paladin Artists, but it is essentially a boutique-styled agency on steroids.

We aren’t for everybody, and everybody is not for us. We do a very specific job incredibly well, and that is how we look at it. We want to be Tiffany’s, not Kmart.

Paradigm Talent Agency’s delivered a shock wave to the industry with its mid-March 2020 layoffs followed by the unprecedented shutdown/postponement of live entertainment that followed, and then as Paradigm severed its music operation, the American agency world was blown apart.

Among the newly formed agencies that emerged following this eruption of changes in the talent world were: Reliant Talent Agency TBA, MINT Talent, Arrival Artists, the Golden Gate Talent Agency, and Wasserman Music—with many involving agents previously with WME, CAA, and Paradigm Talent Agency.

We have many friends at all of these indie agencies, We want all of them to succeed. I’m rooting for them all. The more the merrier. There’s also Madison House, and High Road (Touring). I want everybody to do well.

Of course, you and Andy Somers both left APA and launched Paladin Artists in 2021. Then you quickly made strategic partnerships with Wayne Forte’s Entourage Talent Associates, and The Kagency, founded by Karrie Goldberg.

You ultimately work in a very small industry with a lot of big personalities, and I think you and Andy are naturally drawn to people that do business in a similar way. It’s sort of like. “We’ve all been struggling in this COVID world for 18 months, why don’t we work with people that we want to really work with? People that we respect  and have similar visions as us.”

Is that what it really came down to in bringing Entourage Talent, and The Kagency into the fold?

You just summed it up. We don’t have to do the rest of the interview. You just very articulately, and simply said exactly what we are doing.

At the time of the pair of linkup, Andy Somers said, “Paladin, Entourage, and The Kagency share similar visions, and will each benefit by the sharing of information, experiences, and common goals; exploring new means of improving the future of artist and brand representation while remaining independent at a controllable scale of operation.”

Entourage Talent was established by Wayne Forte in 1993 as a boutique-styled international booking, talent agency, and consulting firm. Previously, Forte was a founding partner, president, and CEO of International Talent Group, (ITG).

Among Entourage Talent’s clients are Tedeschi Trucks Band, Joe Satriani. and Steve Hackett.

The Kagency, founded by Karrie Goldberg in 2004, is one of the first venue representation businesses in North America. It includes project management, talent representation, event-related media buying, and project consulting. It manages event, film, and photo shoot bookings for a portfolio of 500+ traditional and non-traditional venues in the U.S. and the UK. This includes retail pop-up locations, photography studios, restaurants, nightclubs, galleries, penthouses, and outdoor spaces – as well as – talent bookings. Its roster of clients has included Nike, Givenchy, Cartier, Under Armour, Maserati and Vogue as well as such talent as Duran Duran, and Beyoncé.)

The role of a talent agency has unquestionably evolved. At one time agencies soothed clients about their careers or took their fees and moved on. Today, it’s focused on music touring, live events, theater, literary representation, and touring exhibitions while managers seek to establish careers for their clients that will go on for years.

I think as the big talent agencies somewhat imploded what emerged from the ashes are more entrepreneurial independent agencies. A manager may not have the tools to do all of those career matters, but those tools are more readily available now to a talent agency like Paladin Artists.

Yes, and that is either something that you are kind of born with or you are not. There are still people working at larger corporations. I don’t care if it’s CAA or IBM. People find comfort in those institutions, and that’s fine. They are institutions that exist for a reason, and they are good institutions, and I tip my hat to them. But that is not where we aim to be. We want to be an independent agency. We look forward to exploring some other areas. We have a theatre and literary person, Katie Gamelli, who is doing wonderfully. And we have a diverse roster, and it is really the younger acts that are very exciting, and also the classic clients who we lall ove that I have been representing for 20, 30 or 40 years. They still have an audience and still enjoy playing.

What Paladin Artists is doing in focusing on different cultural opportunities isn’t all that different from Wasserman although they work on a grander scale.

They have a lot of money.

Still, Wasserman is also filled with independent,entrepreneurial agents and management executives like Paladin Artists.

That’s very true.

You mentioned bringing in Katie Gamelli to lead the company’s Theatrical Literary division.

Katie Gamelli spent the last 9 years working in the literary division of A3 Artists Agency, and was named by the Broadway Women’s Fund as one of the 2020 Women to Watch on Broadway, She has also worked for The Kleban Foundation, and taught master classes at Sewanee Writers Conference, the Yale School of Drama, and Montclair State University.

Her talent roster of playwrights, composers, lyricists, directors, and designers includes Shakina Nayfack, Daniel Alexander Jones, Carson Kreitzer, and the Estate of Maria Irene Fornés.

Katie’s role at Paladin Artists, in essence, is to discover where the points of intersection lie between the theatrical and music worlds—to look at artists and evaluate the opportunities available to them in the theatrical and literary worlds–and to funnel opportunities between both sectors, while continuing to grow the company’s overall roster.

Well, it’s interesting because Katie has been working in Broadway, and she has a great eye for looking at the roster, and seeing what could evolve legitimately. As you know, it’s a tricky business, whether it’s Off Off Broadway or Off Broadway or Broadway.

Talk to our mutual friend Michael Cohl, founder and chairman, S2BN Entertainment, about the intricacies of Broadway.

(Laughing) Don’t get me started on Michael Cohl and Broadway.

With a track record unmatched by any impresario in entertainment history, Michael Cohl may well also be Broadway’s biggest gambler, ever. He co-produced Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bombay Dreams,”  and was involved with the Monty Python musical “Spamalot” in New York. He salvaged “Spider-Man” from a premature death when money ran out. He scuttled a “Jesus Christ Superstar” tour, which was to star Johnny Rotten. He was a co-producer of “Bat Out Of Hell,” one of the lead producers of both the jukebox musical “Rock of Ages,” and Asi Wind’s magic show “Inner Circle.” Cohl is also a co-owner of the Big Apple Circus with Arny Granat and Nik Wallenda of the famous Wallenda family highwire act.

Theatre is a tricky terrain but one of your clients is Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland who is well-versed in theatre and TV as well. 

There are Broadway stories I could tell you.

The one thing that we have which is a hit right now Off-Broadway is “David Blaine Presents Asi Wind’s Inner Circle” and my associate Winston Simone works on it. As the guy who represented (celebrity magician and magic historian) Ricky Jay for 15 years, I can say that Asi is truly in the one percent.

I’m certainly aware of late Ricky Jay and his extraordinary work as both a historian and practitioner of illusions and cons. I know him also from his film appearances including “House of Games” (1987), “Boogie Nights” (1997), and the James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997).

The “Asi Wind’s Inner Circle” show opened in September, and the show immediately clicked in, and it has become a hot ticket in a small theater (The Judson Theatre at Washington Square South) where we are selling out 7 shows a week right now. And that’s fun.

After its launch, Paladin Artists soon recruited a number of veteran talent agents including Dave Kaplan who brought with him 20 clients including high fliers Spacey Jane, the Black Angels, Gary Numan, the Kills, Melody’s Echo Chamber, and Allah-Las.

With more than two decades in American live music, Dave Kaplan got his start as a concert promoter and talent buyer in San Francisco before launching his own booking agency, Easy Action Industries which merged with The Agency Group in 2002. There, he served 13 years including as VP of its New York office. He left TAG in 2015 just weeks after it was confirmed that the company had been acquired by United Talent Artists (UTA). He also had a tenure at Paradigm where he spent 5 years in the music department before moving to ICM Partners in 2020.

Dave has known and worked with you and  Andy for over 20 years.

We were together at The Agency Group. He had a little club band called the White Stripes. Dave has great instincts on signings. and he’s really a good complement to Brandon (Zmigrocki) who you probably don’t know. He was at Dynamic Talent, and at ICM and CAA before that. CAA as an assistant and ICM as an agent

Brandon brought his roster including Anti-Flag, the Chats, Squeaky Jane and Thick.

Yes.

Prior to Dynamic Talent where he was VP of Live Talent,  Brandon Zmigrocki was a territory agent at ICM Partners which he joined in 2013. While there, he oversaw the relaunch of Sinead O’Connor and developed Yuna, and the Chats. And he represented John Hiatt. Zmigrocki began his career in CAA’s Music Department, working his way up to Agent Trainee and Department Coordinator. Prior to ICM, he was the National Ticket Coordinator for AEG Live/Concerts West, working on tours including the Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars, and Enrique Iglesias.

With Brandon and Dave, I was really hoping that we could get them at a similar time because they work both ends of the spectrum in indie rock. Brandon has a lot of young up-and-coming bands; some that are starting to break like the Chats. And Dave has the Black Lips, the Black Angels, and a hot band out of Australia (formed in Fremantle in 2016), Squeaky Jane.

We have two Janes on the roster.

Brandon handles Squeaky Jane, and Dave Kaplan books Spacey Jane.

I know. It’s a lot of Janes.

Are Dave and Brandon your youngest staff members?

No Winston C. Simone would be. He’s in his mid-20s. Sara Schlievert is also a young agent. She has a hot young band called Yam Haus, and she works with me on Crash Test Dummies. Winston, working with Sara Schlievert, handles BLKBOK which we are very excited about. He’s a young classical pianist and composer (born and raised in Detroit’s inner-city with a name that echoes of one of the greatest pianists and composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach) in his late 20s or early 30s. And this is where Katie (Gamelli) looped back in conversation with The Pubic Theatre about BLKBOK doing a show (on Apr 28th, 2023). He is phenomenal. The New York Times gave him a review that we can’t buy. His manager Benton James said that “Nobody knew that they had their favorite black poet, and then they saw Amanda Gorman, and if people see BLKBOK, everybody will have their favorite classical piano player.”

BLKBOK (aka Charles Wilson III) found his calling at age 6 while performing a Mozart sonata at a piano recital in his hometown of Detroit. By the time he was 8, BLKBOK was an acclaimed piano prodigy, winning statewide accolades and college-level competitions. Since then, he has worked with Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Demi Lovato, Cirque Du Soleil, John Mayer, and others. He is co-managed by Benton James, Billy Mann, Annie Balliro, and Dee Dee Kearny.

BLKBOK – Michelle’s First Day At The White House

As Donna Lee Davidson wrote in the New York Times (June 30th, 2022) about “Black Book DLUX,” an expansion of BLKBOK’s debut album: “BLKBOK, the artist alias of Charles Wilson III, calls his music Neo-Classical, “but maybe call it characteristic classical: classical playing in articulation, embellishments, and style, but not classical in obligation. His music points directly to great composers — this album nods to Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and the waltz king, Chopin — but characterizes differently the look and feel of the institutions that contain them.

This recent release—-features poetry by Lauren Delapenha, spoken interludes that, woven with pianos, evoke dreams or memories turned into hard-to-bear realities. “(Poem) Cookie Waltz” narrates a Sunday afternoon dance between Wilson and his mother, who tells him that if he ‘danced real good, Mozart might show up.’ Although this is the only track titled as a waltz, most of the album evokes the style. ‘I Made Her Breakfast’ is looser than the dance with Cookie: melancholic, sometimes merely a triple-metered canvas for monochromatic painting.

Delapenha’s diction has sharp edges, cutting staccato phrases in ‘(Poem) The Hustle Is Real,’ in which she narrates a chaotic day with the speed of Busta Rhymes, a childhood favorite of Wilson’s. The piano chases her words, not just with fast notes, but also with scurrying embellishments surrounding a melody’s five descending notes. The pace eases into a moon-gazing stillness: Bach in his left hand, Debussy in his right.”)

You have kept the agency structure fairly lean with about 14 or 15 agents.

That’s not including Wayne and Karrie’s staff. Karrie is kind of one of our secret weapons. She’s in England. I’m sure you’ve read some of the press on the Outernet Live (the state-of-the-art, 25,000-square-foot, 2,000-capacity venue on Charing Cross Road, managed by Robert Buttersm and Karrie, founders of Green Light Development) that recently opened in London. It’s her project. It took a lot of time, and effort to launch that very successfully Most of her staff are here in our (New York) office. They work on really interesting things, putting projects into interesting spaces. The Basquiat Exhibit was theirs, for instance, here in New York.

While Paladin has an exceptional roster of heritage acts you have broadened the lineup with other opportunities to service an expanded roster for artists developing over the next decade.

That’s what we are hoping. Frankly, that playbook worked at The Agency Group. The Agency Group was very good in developing new bands. We have the same philosophy by having the classic rock artists that we really respect, and love that don’t get a lot of love at other companies necessarily because they aren’t in hip hop. Just like a baseball team, you hope that the veterans stay veteran, and you hope that some of the young rookies get hot in a couple of years. It’s the same.

A long-standing complaint of young agents coming into music has been about facing obstacles impeding them from developing newer acts, especially while breaking new genres of music.

Major American talent agencies passed over hip hop and rap acts for years much as they had done earlier with R&B-based music acts.

Earlier, older American talent agencies like the William Morris Agency (WMA) had no truck with rock and roll in the late ‘60s, and early ‘70s. Their attitude was, “See the Jeff Beck Group? Are you crazy? Liza Minnelli is opening downtown.”

That’s very funny. Then Premier Talent Agency’s Frank Barsalona came along and started making a lot of money with those (UK rock) acts.

The late Barbara Skydel was alongside him as senior VP, the first female principal of a major talent firm.

Oh yes. She was a powerhouse. She deserved more credit than she got.

For the most part, contemporary national music bookings in America operated on a model devised by Premier Talent Agency’s Frank Barsalona in the ‘70s. Regional promoters had their territory and mostly worked major markets. Over time, a number of savvy promoters realized they could successfully work smaller markets as destination attractions.

You work with many heritage acts including Billy Bragg, Rick Wakeman, Crash Test Dummies, Bruce Cockburn, Ray Davies, Janis Ian, David Johansen, David Gilmour, Chris Difford, Jools Holland, Hot Tuna, and Robert Fripp.

Absolutely.

In most cases, these acts are not making money from their recording catalogs any longer. That income stream has slowed to a trickle. This is almost the last hurrah for some of the heritage acts out there touring

You are right. The calendar is not their friend.

Touring is one of the few ways many of these acts can bring in significant money, particularly after being off the road for nearly two years due to COVID, but also in what may be the sunset years of their careers. Also touring on their own, like Billy Bragg, and Rick Wakeman often do, they can do really quite well financially.

Yep. The two examples that you brought up are interesting because they are two of the few artists that are lucky enough to be able to perform solo or as a duo and still draw audiences, and get paid. Rick and Billy don’t have the other overhead that other bands do. However, King Crimson we had out two summers ago on what was implied to be a “Farewell Tour,” and that was postponed twice. And just as you were talking about with COVID, there were Canadian dates confirmed but the border was still closed.

There was uncertainty and we had to pull those dates back.

That tour was like an “Indiana Jones” movie. The Delta variant was just coming on, and in that band two guys can’t get sick. They can’t do it without Robert (Fripp) or Tony (Levin). If one person or two people go down for three days, the tour financially is upside down. Now they made it through every show. played with 22 people on the road, in spite of hurricanes in Florida, fires in California, and floods in the North East. It was like playing through Biblical times on that tour—are locusts next? with every show played. But it’s very fragile. The financial system is very fragile, even for American bands.

Not your clients but the YES line-up of guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, keyboardist Geoff Downes,  vocalist Jon Davison, and bassist Billy Sherwood, was recently forced to abandon a European and UK tour due to problems with acquiring insurance, but plan to return to the road in 2024.

Meanwhile, Rick Wakeman has announced “Return Of The Caped Crusader” live dates for 2024 In which he will perform a set that includes Yes classics and music from “Journey To The Centre Of The Earth,” his 1974 A&M album.

Well, we represented Jon Anderson, (Trevor) Rabin, and (Rick) Wakeman (ARW). The last time they performed it was pre-COVID. It was a more naive and optimistic time and not as fraught with danger. But it is a real problem with the current finances, and it applies to American bands too. For any touring artist, whether a ballroom theatre size or up, it is not unlike a promoter your profit is in that last week or the last two weeks of a tour. Like a promoter’s is in the last 20% of the house, and if you get three dates that go down in the middle of a tour, you are upside down financially.

It is impressive that the Crash Test Dummies were welcomed back last year with open arms in North America, the UK, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg following delays with touring due to COVID.  

Surprisingly, there has been renewed interest in the Dummies with younger generations discovering its 1991 debut album  “The Ghosts That Haunt Me” which led to its 30th Anniversary Tour.

The Crash Test Dummies are currently in a midst of an American run of dates with a career retrospective show with several Canadian dates after releasing a single “Sacred Alphabet” in March.

I saw the band recently in New York, and they were fantastic. It made me so happy. They were as good as they were in the ‘80s. and the audiences love them, their new material too. Brad (Roberts) has really become an amazing front man which was wonderful to see.

When will COVID be deemed absolutely over? The big question, eh?

That’s an interesting question. You look at the recent Bruce Springsteen tour and they kept as tight of a bubble as they could have.

With North American-based acts, if a member gets COVID, and the band is forced to cancel dates, the band can sit it out somewhere here or return home. For an international act, if that happens, the entire tour is jeopardized.

And with international acts, their visas only last so long.

Losing two or three shows on a tour could be a make-or-break proposition for a UK band.

Roger Daltrey recently told USA Today that the Who may not be able to tour the U.S. again due to high costs and financial risks.

“We cannot get insured and most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals, and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole. To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show.”

Daltrey concluded, “That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.”)

UK performers in the early to mid stages of their careers have often toured the US or Europe – the two biggest markets for British music – to build a fan base but usually lost money in the process.

Now the U.S. immigration service is threatening to raise visa costs from $460 to $1,615. For UK artists already struggling with Brexit red tape and the impacts of the pandemic lockdowns and inflation, such a hike in visa costs would make it almost impossible for anyone but the biggest stars to perform in America.

You are absolutely correct, and it has been a conversation that we have here now, and I’m sure other companies are having the conversation as well. Before we confirm dates, we are asking people to do a budget because some of the other tours that I know that were canceled. Didn’t Lorde postpone a bunch of her dates?  Another big artist, they booked the dates, and then they did the budget. Then it was, “Oh my God, we are going to lose half a million dollars.”

A slew of artists have canceled shows in the past 18 months citing mental health concerns or admittedly scrapped dates due to costs. Among those canceling commitments have been Lewis Capaldi, Animal Collective, Rage Against the Machine Arlo Parks, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Chloe Moriondo, and Santigold.

In her newsletter to fans, Lorde blamed “a storm of factors” largely stemming from the pandemic, and said for many acts, “touring has become a demented struggle to break even or face debt” – and for some, it is “completely out of the question.”

American singer, songwriter, and YouTuber Chloe Moriondo bluntly canceled her UK and European tour “due to the cost of touring” –according to a statement. The singer was set to tour her third album ‘Suckerpunch’ earlier this year.

What we are saying to everybody now is, “Do your budget. We will book the date and we will see if there’s a shortfall or not”—and I’m sure that you have heard this from many people, whether it is crew costs, bus costs, gasoline costs, hotel costs, it doesn’t matter, it is up 20% to 25%. The sound and light company too. Everybody is trying to recoup two years of lost income, and things are higher.

Meanwhile, there’s great sensitivity today about ticket pricing. Concerns that the live music industry may just be catering to a wealthy segment of the audience that can afford tickets, especially for superstar shows, and it is excluding those who can’t afford such shows. And there’s a growing concern from some in the live music industry that some fans may turn away from live shows in general, even though with smaller shows with less popular acts, promoters are offering tickets at more affordable pricing.

The Taylor Swift ticket-sale meltdown last year has spurred a wave of legislative action at the state and federal level in the U.S. but  In most cases with superstar acts it’s not Ticketmaster setting the ticket price, it’s the artists.

Absolutely. I completely agree

Should we not be concerned about what pricing for music, sports, and theatre is doing in terms of changing audience habits? That their pricing is only reaching a certain audience demographic? That only certain people can afford to have a great experience at a show or game?

Furthermore, between COVID, and lack of affordability—or let’s call it competition for the dollar and high prices—perhaps, people who used to buy 4, 6, or 8 tickets a year in the $50 to the $70 range—maybe now they only buy one ticket to see an act at $300 because they can have a good seat.

Many people may never experience a live music show or a professional sports game or a theatrical show.

What I think is that they (artists and managers) don’t realize is if they don’t take care of the audience the audience will dwindle. They will think that it’s just a televised thing, and it’s not live.

Even with televised sports, you have to sign up for a significant fee.

Yeah for a subscription. You capture people when they are kids. In sports, in particular, but with music also. You capture them when they are in high school and college.

Steve, music and sports fans go to an arena, and a hot dog is $8 or $10, popcorn is $8, parking $25 to $40, beer ranging from $7.50 to $10.00. If you’re a big spender, you might opt for a 24 oz. King can of Heineken for a whopping $11.

Yep. You don’t even get nickel and dimed to death. You get $10 and $20 to death.

It’s common for a couple attending a concert to spend $120 on food and beverages

Yeah. It’s not healthy. It will be interesting to see at what point the audience pushes back.

After the Rolling Stones’ tour of 2016, with a standard pair of tickets being from $91 to $1,500–depending on where you sat, and what city the band was playing in— I thought that wasn’t going to ever fly again.

I was wrong.

When asked how to tell a ticket price is too high Canadian promoter Michael Cohl famously once said, “That’s easy. People don’t come.”

Yeah, and he’s right. Push back, you know.

Sarah McLachlan found that out with her final fourth women-centric Lilith Fair in 2010 with 10 canceled dates and performers like Carly Simon, Norah Jones, Kelly Clarkson, the Go-Go’s, and Queen Latifah bailing, fearing that they wouldn’t be paid.

They found that out with (Barbra) Streisand the second time around.

The “Barbra: The Music, The Mem’ries, The Magic” tour, presented by Live Nation Global Touring and S2BN Entertainment, began in 2017 and ran two years.  Tickets prices ranged between $90 and $510.

The reality is you find out how far can you push ticket prices. The audience holds back for the ticket price to come down.

Have you had to caution some of your acts and their management over what can be pulled out of a market? Have you said, “This is a good ticket price. Your ticket price is not a good ticket price. You don’t want to go that high for specific markets.”

Do you have those kinds of conversations?

All of the time. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. I lost an argument on that recently with a manager and a client who wanted to go with a very aggressive P1 in theatres. I was like, “Let’s not do this.” Not big theatres. I said, “Guys, there’s a lot of competition out there.” It was relatively short notice that we put the tour together. It was the first time that this artist had toured on his own. I was like, “We have to invite people in, not give them sticker shock coming in.”

How did that turn out?

I was 100%  wrong. The manager I love and the client also. We went back and forth, and I was 100% wrong. These tickets sold at a significant price. We were doing 60%-70% business in some places, and making percentage. In this case, it worked. You’ve got to pick your niche, and I was wrong. When you are wrong you better cop to it.

Over the years. you have worked with so many Canadian acts. After selling your company,  The Music Business Agency to William Morris in 1989, you became one of WMA’s major booking agents, signing Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked Ladies, and The Band.

Today you represent Canadians Crash Test Dummies as well as Bruce Cockburn, Kiefer Sutherland, and Loreena McKennitt. What so attracts you to Canadian acts?

I never looked at it that way. I just do like Canadian artists going back to the ‘80s, I think that Kate & Anna McGarrigle were my first Canadian clients.

You were Kate & Anna’s agent for quite a long time.

I met (their sister manager) Jane McGarrigle. When I was a promoter, we promoted Kate & Anna at Carnegie Hall with Rick Danko opening.  Then I went to Magna Artists, and Jane and I just became friendly.

I began working in music in Toronto’s Yorkville Village in the mid-60s alongside True North Records’ founder Bernie Finkelstein who managed the Paupers, Kensington Market, Murray McLauchlan, and of course, Bruce Cockburn for years.

(Laughter). God bless Bernie. I’ve worked with Bernie and Bruce for 35 years. It could be a little longer actually. And I love them both.

Will  Paladin Artists eventually open an office in Canada?

I’m not going to say anything publicly about that right now.

You haven’t come to a decision to open an office in Toronto as of yet?

No. There’s some interesting chats going on. I see the complete viability of an office that goes across the board. There are some really good people up there that I enjoy talking to and working with. We have (previously) proven the model can work (with The Agency Group). I see great value in having a sister company office up there. Every now and then, you get really lucky; where a band is either doing well in Canada, and hasn’t broken through (in the U.S.) or vice versa. And once every couple of years, you get a Nickelback or City and Colour or the Arkells which still haven’t popped down here, but they are a great band. Or you get a Barenaked Ladies, a Crash Test Dummies. Or a Drake.

As an agent, you do get close to specific artists.Tell me about booking the legendary poet, and writer Robert Hunter who provided the Grateful Dead with many of their most enduring lyrics. He died in 2019.

While Hunter and Jerry Garcia played in a few bluegrass bands together, Robert passed on an offer to join Garcia’s pre-Grateful Dead jug band to focus instead on writing. 

He became a rock and roll icon through writing lyrics for the likes of “Dark Star” and “China Cat Sunflower” and proceeding through “Uncle John’s Band,” “Box of Rain,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Touch of Gray,” “St. Stephen,” “China Cat Sunflower” and “Alligator.”

Robert performed only infrequently over the years.

He liked the concept of touring more than the reality of touring. Robert frequently rehearsed as if he was going to soon go out on the road, but it wouldn’t happen until years later. When I started working with him, it took me a few conversations to realize this isn’t a rock-and-roll guy.

He didn’t tour much. Was there a demand for him?

Well, it’s funny but there was a demand for him. He was reluctant about it. He enjoyed it.

Robert never played San Francisco although Hardly Strictly Bluegrass had a standing offer for him to play at its annual gathering in Golden Gate Park for a very respectable fee.

Yes. How do you know that?

He didn’t play San Francisco because he said he wanted to retain his anonymity.

Yeah, and I used to tease him about that. Maybe the story got into Relix  Magazine because I spoke about it at his funeral. I did tell that story about Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but I didn’t mention the number (fee). They would offer him $50,000 to $75,000, and every year he’d go, “Nope, I don’t want to do it.” That was for 10 years. And then one year, he said to me, “What do you think?” I said, “What do I think? You never asked me that question. I think that you have a nice breakfast. You drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. You have lunch at the site. You play for an hour. You are home for dinner. And you put a new addition on the home. That’s what I think.” He said, “I like my anonymity.” I said, “Bob, you never leave the house. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is going to see you anyways.”

And he never did do it.

He never did do it.

Yet Robert fell in love with performing at the City Winery

He did. That is absolutely true. He did. Did you see the Grateful Dead documentary where they sort of ambushed him at the City Winery in Napa? It is really funny because he gets really cranky when he gets thrown off track.

Ironically, his last shows at the City Winery in New York, which we obviously didn’t know were going to be his last shows, they were some of the best shows that he ever, ever did.

Is that when Robert performed Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run?”

Yes. I was there that night (July 23, 2014). He did both “Born To Run” and “Touch of Grey.” It was only in that last year or so that he started doing “Touch of Grey.” Then, at one of those solo shows, he not only did “Touch of Grey,” but he also did Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” I was talking to Robert and his wife Maureen after the show and I said, “You could have bet me $10,000 that Robert would do ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Touch of Grey’ tonight, and I would have taken that bet in a heartbeat. No problem.”

Robert Hunter’s songwriting didn’t end with Jerry Garcia’s death of from heart attack in 1995. In the years after, he went on to co-write songs with Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, Jim Lauderdale, the Dead’s drummer Mickey Hart, and Bob Dylan.

At the time of his death, Hunter was starting to plan some West Coast shows, if not a tour, in November 2019, but he died on Sept. 29^th at the age of 78 at his home in San Rafael, California.  Maureen of 37 years was by his side holding his hand. He was also survived by a daughter, Kate Hunter; a stepdaughter, Lotte; and several grandchildren.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Queens, and then we moved out to Riverhead, Long Island in 1968. I was about 12.

That’s quite a change from Queens.

Oh, my gawd. it was quite a change. I was a semi-city kid, and Queens was hardcore and it could be very rural in that part of Eastern Long Island at the time. My dad was a car dealer. He started as a car salesman and he opened up a dealership in Riverhead with Volkswagen, Porches, and Audi which is a fun part of my job too sometimes.

You started in the music business in the ‘70s as a teenager, booking bands into Eastern Long Island venues including Hot Dog Beach, Artful Dodger, the legendary OBI, and  The Barge which was the floating night club on Dune Road, East Quogue that was the best-known club in The Hamptons.

I was booking bands in ’73 and ’74 in clubs in the Hamptons yes. I used to put bands into the Artful Dodger and OBI. I wasn’t legally allowed to get into the clubs. I was 17. It was where I learned about the power of ancillary revenue. Hot Dog Beach was right across the street from The Barge, and it had an incredible extensive sandbar in the Atlantic Ocean. Hot Dog Beach-Dune Road was basically on a sandbar in the Hamptons.

Through the summer of 1965, the Rascal’s legendary residency at The Barge, with Adrian Barber manning the soundboard, sparked a bidding war among many record labels. Phil Spector’s Philles, Columbia, Capitol, RCA-Victor and Atlantic all wanted to sign the group. The group chose Atlantic.

I was just a kid who talked his way into booking bands for $100 a week which was a fortune. It was unbelievable. I had to mow 100 lawns to get a hundred bucks. The Barges’ owner Dave McKibben had a giant parking lot, He used to sit in this big parking lot all day. I would go, “Dave do you want a break?” It would be 95 degrees. He would say, “I’m fine. Make sure the band is playing.” I would bring him a beer, and ask if he wanted a break and he’d go “No, no., no. Make sure the band is playing. That is all you have to do.” It took me several months to realize that he was doing about 5,000 cars a day, in and out for 12 bucks each, which was like a fortune. He was doing 100 grand a weekend in cash in 1973 in the parking lot. That’s why he never gave a shit.

You booked concerts while attending State University of New York at New Paltz.

I was a terrible student, but I was really good at putting on shows. So they kept me around because I was bringing in Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Garcia, and Labelle and Patti Smith when they were hot. We were only 60 miles from New York, and we were the perfect routing date. I knew how to talk to agents. Because it was an hour and a half north of the city. It didn’t conflict with anybody.

New York agents would have the choice of doing a play in Philly or coming to you.

Or they could do both. On a Tuesday night, we didn’t care. We had a small auditorium – a gym. I really got the appetite for seeing if I could make a career out of this. I had no idea. There was no playbook or course. I just knew that I liked doing it, and I liked no weekend shows. My two favorite times of the day are 8 o’clock and 11 o’clock when the lights go down and everybody gets excited, and when the band leaves and everybody is stroked. It’s fun to be part of the circus.

What was your major at State University?

Economics and I barely scratched through that in university. I was there for 4 1/2 years. I was in a car accident that took me out for a while, and then another semester I lost just because I never went to class.

Did you graduate?

Oh yes, I did. I did, by the skin of my teeth.

Did your success as a teenager working in the Hamptons, and then booking shows while in college give you the confidence in 1979 to seek a job in New York with concert promoter New Audiences which booked Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Dire Straits, Weather Report and Miles Davis in New York, Boston, and Washington?

College gave me the appetite. My first job. Two wonderful guys, Art Weiner, and Julie Lokin, and that was their company. I eventually booked shows for them like the McGarrigles/Danko show.

It was so sad seeing Weather Report’s (co-founder  saxophonist and composer). Wayne Shorter’s passing in March (2^nd). Weather Report was a special band, and he was a lovely guy.

Wayne Shorter recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. Noting his work for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet, and then with the jazz fusion band Weather Report. New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as, “Probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer, and a contender for greatest living improviser.”

You then briefly worked as an agent at Magna Artists in 1982.

Magna, I loved being there. Ed Rubin was fantastic. Billy Hahn was the guy that hired me. Wayne Forte had ironically just left when I got there. I had a very important lesson there. At the time it was a really great agency, but through no fault of the agency it lost several great clients, Black Sabbath with Ozzy (Osbourne), ELO, and Chuck Mangione. Just the way the management things crumbled. I was 25, and I loved the office, and the people there were great. So Magna folded which really bugged me out. I really loved the job but there was the loss of a couple of major clients through no fault of theirs. It was just politics and happenstance, and they had to fold up. Ed Rubin went on to work for The Nederlander Organization, and I ended up going downtown and opened up MBA (Music Business Agency).

You operated MBA for 7 years before you sold it to the William Morris Agency (WMA) in 1989. Among your clients at MBA were Billy Bragg, Jimmy Cliff, Fela, Yellowman, Toots and the Maytals Robert Hunter, Jorma Kaukonen, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Hot Tuna.

You developed mostly niche acts that larger competitors might not have been drawn to.

It was an interesting group at the time. Reggae music and world music were happening, Fela was quite a story, and Toots and the Maytals, and Yellowman were really popular at the time. And Billy Bragg and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Jorma Kaukonen, and Hot Tuna did really well. It was an interesting amalgamation of people that I liked, and artistically respected. It was various interesting niches that came together.

Why was William Morris Agency so interested in bringing you into the fold?

At that time I was 28 or 29 and they wanted a younger person there with those up and coming acts which came out okay actually.

That was an interesting opportunity at the time. It was fascinating being at William Morris. I really learned there.  It was as if I was getting my doctorate because it was really interesting and there were a lot of really smart people there. There are friends from there that I have to this day.

Historically talent agencies concentrate on servicing their star clients until the moment that they realize that they need to refresh their rosters with emerging acts.

That is ongoing today.

You stayed at William Morris for five years before leaving to spearhead the fledgling New York office for the UK-based, Neil Warnock-founded The Agency Group where you first served as president of North American operations.

The Agency Group really took off after it launched in North America with the New York office opening in 1992. Serving as TAG’S president of operations in North America. and becoming a member of the company’s Senior Global Management Team, you built the company from 4 to 40 agents in America.

You represented a personal roster of more than 60 artists, including Dolly Parton, Brian Wilson, Bob Geldof, Billy Bragg, Bruce Cockburn, David Gilmour, the Scorpions, the New York Dolls, Ray Davies, Squeeze, King Crimson, Dream Theater, and others.

The Agency Group seemed like an interesting opportunity to do something independent with a goal of growing music and we certainly did that. We had a great collection of people in time and place.

You stayed at The Agency Group for quite a while as it became a concert industry powerhouse. The world’s largest independent music agency. Despite its growth, many people continued to regard The Agency Group as a boutique agency.

Yeah, 19 years (until 2013). We had a good run.

It’s funny that there were people I hired at The Agency Group that were in their 20s and I’ve now known them for 20 years. They were single and now they have families. It is very nice. The collective memory seems to have a very nice golden glow around that time period for a lot of people. It’s very, very sweet. It was a fun time and a fun group of people who worked very hard and did good work.

Given that you and many of your Paladin Artists team have worked in all of these different talent agencies over the years are you each able to adapt to various scenarios because you’ve experienced them before?

That’s what we hope. I do have the playbook. I was quite fortunate with situations—- whether it was MBA and grew that to the point where someone else was interested—- to The Agency Group that had tremendous growth. And yeah that was due to the many individuals there too. Natalia (Nastaskin), Bruce Solar, Andy (Somers) and others and I’m so proud of what all these people are doing now.

With all of the ongoing buyouts and mergers of promoters over the decades coupled with the overriding roles of Live Nation and AEG Live, is there room today for independent promoters in the business in America?

Some independents are doing quite well like Disco Donnie, Another Planet, Beaver Productions, and Frank Productions.

There is definitely room for independent promoters. It’s always nice to have an independent point of view, but it depends on the project. It really does. Live Nation is certainly good at doing certain things, and a lot of the time it’s not the name of the company. It’s who is doing the work. Who am I talking to? Like Jodi Goodman in San Francisco or Mike Belkin in Cleveland. These are people I have had a relationship with throughout my career and their careers. We all started around the same time. It is not like I am dealing with Live Nation in San Francisco, I am dealing with Jodi Goodman (president, Northern California). I’m dealing with Michael. The company is interesting, but it’s the people there. Of course, Riley O’Connor is my (Canadian Live Nation) guy in Toronto

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Talent Agent Steve Martin appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Sound Royalties is a specialty finance firm based in West Palm Beach, Florida that offers financial support to musicians, songwriters, producers, and other music creatives.

Founded in 2014 by its CEO Alex Heiche, it enables qualified creatives to receive ongoing royalty advances over their advance term.

For creatives with as little as $5,000 in royalty income in the recent past, Sound Royalties can help leverage that into advance funding for their needs.

Sound Royalties is also leveraged to offer royalty advances up to tens of millions of dollars.

To serve its clients in 14 countries, Sound Royalties works with more than 130 payors and maintains an international network of representatives on three continents.

Sound Royalties’ model enables creators to retain full ownership of their copyrights while providing ongoing cash flow during the term of the advance. It works with varied royalty streams and helps find hidden royalties to increase their bottom line to maximize clients’ options.

It operates by advancing royalties paid through music labels, distributors, publishers, and PROs such as BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, SOCAN (in Canada), SoundExchange, and others.

It has collaborated with hundreds of creatives including such artists as Lil Wayne, Pitbull, Wyclef Jean, .and DJ Khaled; songwriters Steve Dorff, Larry Weiss, and Sonia Leigh; producer David Tickle; musician, producer, and composer Gilde Flores; and Too Lost, the American independent music, technology publishing, and distribution company.

Beyond not seeking ownership of copyrights, the company doesn’t even take a percentage of a creator’s future earnings. It offers fixed multiple pricing options over a fixed term.

Prior to founding Sound Royalties, Heiche who graduated in criminal justice from the University of Maryland, College Park, held executive positions in multiple high-tech software, and specialty finance firms.

Heiche has since had almost two decades of experience in providing cash and finance-raising strategies to large annuity recipients, and professional athletes as well as showing songwriters, artists, and producers how to make the music industry finance system work for them.

How much staff does Sound Royalties have?

We have about 50 full-time employees now based in West Palm Beach, Florida, and around the world.

Sound Royalties’ year-end results for 2022 showed that the company’s volume of fundings to music creatives grew by more than 90%  as it serves its clients in 14 countries, working with over 130 different publishers, PROs, and labels through an international network of representatives.

Launched in 2014, the company started having significant growth by 2018, but obviously, 2022 was a pivotal year.

I think it was. We have been growing year over year, but it just took off in 2022, and we are seeing that not letting up at all in 2023.

Was the growth a result of the slowdown of touring due to COVID, coupled with recording revenues drying up?  That creatives were looking at alternative revenue streams?

No. That would have come about in 2020 and 2021. What I think is that the company was founded in 2014, and at first, it was, “Never heard of you,” and “Don’t know what you do.” In 2015, and 2016, it was, “Oh, you are just one of those “pawn shops.” The black sheep of the music industry, a finance company probably, but I don’t know what you do.” Then 2017 and 2018, it was, “Well, this is too good to be true.”

That changed.

Yes, as more and more people started to adopt it, and understand what we were doing, it became, “Oh, it’s not too good to be true, It is true.” People are starting to realize that One: We are here to stay. Two: We are one of the good guys, and it isn’t too good to be true. And the (music) market is really starting to adopt it, and figure that out.

Sound Royalties offers financial support to musicians, songwriters, producers and others, and helps find hidden royalties to increase their bottom line without them having to sell away the rights to their works and catalogs.

If an artist has as little as $5,000 in royalty income in the recent past, the company will help them leverage that into advance money for their current needs.

Sound Royalties seems like a business manager crossed with a PRO.

I would say no. We don’t replace the PRO. We don’t replace the publisher, label, or distributor. Just think of us being that financial institution. All we do is allow you to advances on that (royalty) stream. So your business manager can still negotiate different deals with publishers, labels, and distributors, and we ensure that you are collecting from around the world in Neighboring Rights and whatever it may be.

When you are approached by artists, songwriters, producers, or whatever, your team does  financial diligence of their catalog; in essence big picture with attention to sources of income that these creatives are currently collecting; to other income streams they may not realize they should be receiving; but also projecting what new income streams might be coming in for them, to help forecast their potential earnings year over year into the future

Your team looks at what a catalog has done, and what it will likely do, right?

What it has done, and what it will do in the future of the existing works. We are not assuming that they are going to create more hits and continue to grow. It is, “What are those existing works over the next 5 or 10 years based on genre.” There’s a dozen different factors, but one is genre. Some genres peak on the charts this week and will be gone next week. Other genres take a long time to peak on the charts, but they have a long tail of decline of income that goes on almost in perpetuity. The age of the music, where it is in the net growth curve, the size of the catalog, and the depth of the catalog are all factors. How much of it is sync or non-repeatable income; domestic or foreign income? There are so many factors. All of that, we can look at, and we look at it all to then determine what something is going to be earning in the future.

One of the traditional direct ways to evaluate a catalog was by looking at the historical performance of the catalog, and then projecting out what you think the revenue might be into the future. Back when the industry wasn’t changing much that was a fairly simple exercise. What has changed is that there are so many new income streams that never existed even a few years ago.

Today, we’re still seeing growth in Interactive streaming services like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Pandora, and Google, and also seeing growth in a lot of the new media platforms, whether it be gaming, or in-home fitness, or social media like FaceBook, TikTok, Peloton, Roblox, Twitch, and Instagram.

Therein lies one of the great music publishing challenges: Figuring out how to unlock the hidden income of songs. 

You can do all this factoring with newer artists, songwriters, and producers with careers spread over a couple of years or with heritage talents owning extensive catalogs that may have been out of view for years, but still earn significant income verified by going, say, over back through three to five years of statements, agreements, and amendments.

Arguably, some catalogs have not been well-serviced over the years as labels haven’t wanted to know about and didn’t care about the heritage acts on their roster. They were then, and still are, more focused on emerging artists, and what can chart.

Also, there are unclaimed or unpaid royalties out there as affirmed by a NOI— which is a “Notice of Intention” to secure a compulsory license, and is a public notice identified in section 115(b) of title 17 of the United States Code.

When a digital provider streams music, it is obligated to secure a compulsory license from the work’s publisher. In instances where the digital provider cannot locate the publisher, they are allowed to a file Notice of Intentions, and these NOIs are allowed to be filed in bulk.

With global streaming revenues slowing, there is growing pressure on music rights holders to identify new growth drivers.  In addition to music royalty income streams, there are wider rights, such as merchandise, name and likeness rights, as well as Neighboring Rights, and producer royalties.

Correct. And we do work on the composition and sound recordings. It could be an artist. It could be a producer. It could be a writer. It could be an independent publisher. We work on both sides.

Music publishing is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and while complex it is one of the more stable sides of the music business. Like every other sector of the music industry, music publishing has been transformed by the growing global network of digital platforms and streaming services. Digital revenues have become significant for music publishers and songwriters and now compete with traditional revenue streams.

In recent years, we’ve seen the rise and expansion of independent music publishers, and self-published songwriters and creators.

Decades ago, affiliated publishers were down the hallway or on another floor from the record company, and label executives didn’t quite understand what was happening in the publishing world.

Plus, the publishing rates for music use were so incredibly low that affiliated publishers at large labels were virtual ignored.

The sound recording was King, and distribution was King.

Gradually, that changed quite a bit.

For decades, it seemed that traditional major publishers were buying catalogs as add-ons to their portfolios without any increased exploitation; riding on the coattails of their record label partner, doing little more than trying to have a great operational backroom, and sending along a check to the songwriters and co-publishers involved.

At the same time, song publishing was often routinely assigned by a label to an affiliated publisher after an artist signed a recording contract. In some cases, songwriters would try to reclaim songs, but often their attitude about business, in general, had been “I don’t want to know.”

Over the years I’ve told many rights holders how they are leaving money on the table, and they mostly looked at me in disbelief

Today’s rights holders, however, seem far more knowledgeable about ownership and their copyrights.

Yeah, just over the long curve. Look at the deals. Publishing used to be not even a co-pub deal. Then it became more popular, and it became standard to be a co-pub, a 50/50 deal on the publishing side. Then over time admin (administration deals) started to creep into the mix, and are much more prevalent today than ever before. Co-pub deals are happening where you are getting that creative think-pitching for that extra help, but those deals are being negotiated for different rates than just straight 50/50. We have fewer and fewer writers that come to us saying, “I’m self-published. I am BMI or I am ASCAP, or I am SOCAN (in Canada) and therefore I am collecting all of my writing and publishing.”

Now you need to make sure that you are collecting your publishing side as well as well as your sync, and mechanicals. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (the nonprofit U.S. organization established under the Music Modernization Act of 2018) has done an amazing job of coming online, and educating those that are self-published. For those with songs that are self-published, they are seeing this, and understanding more of, “Okay what is the publishing side of my writer’s share? My writer’s share is really just more a performance writer’s share, and then the publishing side is the sync, mechanical ,and performance. What am I negotiating for that?” I think that they understand that better than before.

After your team begins working with a client, and have appraised the value of their catalog, and have a summary of their assets, do you suggest distributors or labels for future deals?

We do not. We do not want to interfere with the creative relationship with the publishers, labels, and distributors. So we are kind of like Switzerland. We stay neutral, but enable them to have the freedom to decide what they are going to retain, and who they are going to work with. A clear point in that is that we are not favoring anyone. We work with over 130 different publishers, PROs and labels right now. And that number is rapidly growing.

A business manager can explain to them what their obligations are, and what deals are risky or not risky.

Yep. And so our role is to provide the funding so they can negotiate the deals that they want to negotiate. They can come to us for financing, and then negotiate the best deal for themselves without having to focus on the advance portion.

In essence, you are a financing partner able to support their goals over the long term.

Correct without taking any assets. So there are investors and financiers. An investor becomes a partner, and they want a percentage. So if they are expecting to earn $100,000, and you earmark $10 million, then they get a percentage of that $10 million. If we say “Here’s $8, pay us back $10,” you can make a billion dollars, but you are still only pay us back $10.

Sound Royalties offers multiple pricing options starting off at a 4% rate?

It’s in the single digits. It all depends on what it is, and the risk. What I saw in the industry was the need for a partner or a financial company that was working with creatives. Not against them. I want to be a partner or part of something with them. That is what the vision (of the company) was initially, and it created something that is much bigger, and it kept growing and growing.

Sound Royalties will work with people facing IRS liens?

Yes.

Why? That would seem considerably risky. They could lose most everything, and Sound Royalties would be out of pocket as well.

Well, that it is just it. So if a creative has a lien, we will analyze and look at it, and quite often still provide them with funding. It enables them to either get on a payment plan, pay the IRS, or do what they need to do. But we do not put them at risk.

We still hold true that risk.

If the IRS seizes that (revenue) stream, we are taking that risk.

We are not going against them. So we are price basis on risk. So the higher the risk, the higher the cost. So for every 10 deals that we do that are IRS liens, we  assume that 7 will not get seized, and three will. So the 7 have to pay for the principal and the interest for the 10. But the creative is able to get money, and if the IRS seizes the stream, we’re taking that risk.

The IRS rarely forgives tax debts, but one thing about an IRS lien is that it forces people to be realistic about their situation, and realize that they can’t ignore the fact that something needs to be done. IRS plans typically allow debtors to pay off the balance owed plus penalties and interest over a 36-month period.

Yes.

What did you see before launching Sound Royalties in 2014 that led you to identify the gaping need for funding options for music professionals? What led you to believe that there was a business there?

You must have seen something. That artists, songwriters, producers, and others were being screwed whenever taking on loans and that there was a better way to address this?

I basically made the decision that I wanted to come into the music industry. I jumped off a cliff and decided to build the airplane on the way down. And that airplane would be a music company. The first thing that I knew was that I didn’t know enough about royalties, publishing, or labels to buy one of those or to go that route. But I knew finance. So the first thing that I did was that I visited every specialty finance company, and every bank that had an entertainment division, and talked to them. For the private financial companies, I asked, “What are you guys doing? Who are you turning away? Can I partner with you? Can I buy you?”

What was their response to you showing up and asking insider-type finance questions?

They all opened their doors, and they were all very welcoming.

Was this in Nashville?

No. L.A., San Francisco, and Nashville.

How did they view that side of their business at the time? As you know, there’s always been an uneasy relationship in general between the financial community, and the music business.

So in visiting all of them, I realized that the music business was songwriters, producers, labels, distributors, publishers, and entertainment lawyers, but not finance. The finance companies were considered outsiders. Either there was an entertainment banker from a major bank that the banker themselves were considered part of the industry or the rest were considered outsiders because they were “the pawnshops.” They were buying people’s copyrights for pennies on the dollar, preying on them when they were in desperate need, or they were giving them (music industry people) usurious loans, overextending them, and then seizing (assets) in default.

That is when I said, “I don’t want to buy in and be part of that.” I said “I will create my own, and it will operate more like a bank. We won’t buy, and we won’t even take in default.” Some of the entertainment banks, one in particular here in Nashville where I had become friends with, and is a long-time friend now, said, “Listen, you will never make money if you operate in that sense because there’s not enough deal volume.”

What was your immediate reaction?

My thought process was, “Well, if I build this company, Sound Royalties, as long as we don’t lose money, and we are small niche company serving those who understand what we do, it’ll be great.”

As I recall, word got around quickly about Sound Royalties in industry circles.

Yes, it took off, but at first, it was considered too good to be true. As the attorneys started to look at it, and the industry started to see it, and we started to have longevity in the industry, people started to realize, “This is different than what was offered before. They are more part of the music industry.” We have been accepted as part of the industry and as a music finance company.

With your background in holding executive jobs in high-tech software and specialty finance firms, you had enough training to know to keep your eye on where the money was coming from in the music industry.

You quickly learned to navigate complex copyright and royalty issues because you knew to follow the money.

You discovered the considerable lag time in payments from recordings and music publishing. Anywhere from 6 to 12 months or more in the past to attain royalties owed. Today, in the period of computers and digital distribution, creators are being paid in a more timely fashion.

If you look over the past few years the publishers have gone from once a year (royalty payments), and then it was twice a year, then quarterly, and some are even paying monthly now to keep pace with the admin, and the digital alignment companies. Or on the distribution side, it used to be twice a year for some labels, and then it was quarterly, and now it’s monthly. And it is picking up as things are going digital. But that was part of the understanding even before I created Sound Royalties. I saw that there was a huge lag time. People had hit songs, and they didn’t have money to self-promote, get on the road or do whatever they wanted to do, and that there was a need in this industry. But even as that process has sped up, there’s still a need for fair funding that doesn’t give up everything and doesn’t put at risk their creations.

Presently, private equity and other investment groups have discovered the value of recorded music, and music publishing catalogs. Of late there have been ongoing rounds of catalog acquisitions with catalogs being valued for triple or quadruple what they might have sold for a few years ago.

Music assets are attractive to investors because they’re relatively safe and stable, and there have been increased applications on how to exploit songs if they still bringing in income. So there are a myriad of deals on the table these days, and so many different variations available.

Why is Sound Royalties’ emphasis on retaining copyrights? Not everybody should retain their copyrights.

Sure, there is a reason when you may want to give them up, or it’s time to let them go. But the reason we are seeing is the high dollar being paid, which is then further creating the interest, and an increase in the volume of creators letting go of their copyrights is the fact that in a streaming world, in a digital age, copyright is King.

Ownership is King.

It used to be in publishing that the works could be created, and be more valuable over time, but in a streaming world, you are getting six to one for the royalties for the sound recording versus the composition. So ownership is King, and it makes a huge difference, and there is a need to own. You hear someone selling for a 17 or 20 multiple, I saw a 33 multiple late last year. Nobody is waiting 17 or 20 years or 33 years to collect a principal, never mind any interest back. What they see is what we see which is this wall of money coming as the world switches to streaming that is legitimizing the consumption of music.

Streaming is still set up for the old style music business model. Despite the majority of music on streaming services being sourced from independents, indie artists have it tough because content from the three majors dominates the top tiers of popular tracks.

The majors still have the digital muscle.

Yeah.

As Music Business Worldwide founder Tim Ingram has argued  (Oct. 6th, 2022 issue), “With 100,000 tracks uploaded to streaming services daily, cutting through the noise with niche music, that often fits best in an albums market, rather than the singles-focused world of 2023, is arguably incredibly difficult. At the same time, short-form content that powers platforms like TikTok isn’t always the best opportunity for deep engagement with an artist that might be the antithesis of a one-hit-wonder.”

Ingham further explains that, according to Spotify’s Loud & Clear data, just over 14,700 DIY artists generated more than $10,000 from both recorded music and music publishing combined on Spotify in 2022. And that figure actually fell year-on-year.

In terms of profitability, Spotify still lost half a billion dollars In 2022 though it reportedly added 10 million net Premium subscribers in the final quarter of the year. It added another 5 million net Premium subscribers to its user base in Q1 2023 (the three months to end of March), taking its total global paying subs audience to 210 million.

Spotify forecasts that it will end Q2 of 2023, at the end of June with 217 million Premium subscribers with the addition of 7 million net new subscribers additions in the quarter.

Warner Music Group CEO, Robert Kyncl believes that music is “undervalued,” that music from certain types of artists—especially those high-value artists and songwriters who attract subscribers to streaming services—should be paid more than other types of music.

Meanwhile, SoundCloud recently teamed up with Merlin, the digital music licensing agency for independent labels, on a global licensing deal, allowing Merlin members and their artists to participate in SoundCloud’s Fan-Powered Royalties (FPR) model, a user-centric model that allocates a share of each listener’s subscription and advertising revenues only to the artists/tracks they individually listen to.

What Spotify needs to do is revamp its pro-rata “one big pot” streaming model.

Yes. But the whole digitalization of the content is legitimizing the consumption of music. Listen, we have 339 million people in America that listen to music (in fact 82 million Americans pay an average of $10 a month for on-demand music streaming services),  and there are 43 million in Latin America.

There’s 55 million monthly active users in India (with 10 billion tracks streamed monthly), and in China, there’s another 684 million. Those people may not pay 10 yuan or 10 rupees. They are watching through YouTube ads, their eyes, they pay for that consumption of music, and it’s tracked and that is creating a wall of money.

Also, sync was up 15% last year. We had these platforms licenses coming online, whether it’s TikTok or Facebook, that are starting to generate revenue for creatives that weren’t before. So pay to the creative is on the upswing, and that is why you are seeing these high dollar amounts (in selling catalog). Even as the interest rate went up, and some of the investors that were more financial investors, not industry players, had stepped aside. The multiples aren’t necessarily coming down because the wall of money is coming closer, and people are seeing these increases.

Despite indications of a slowdown in some territories, the global music subscriber streaming market continues to stand strong.

While synchs have been a remarkably consistent revenue stream for the recording industry over the past 5 years, however, there are warning clouds as Netflix, HBO, Disney, The CW, and others have indicated they will shortly slash their budgets for TV and movie content. The result, if there are fewer shows, will be fewer places to place music. The music industry would be affected as labels and publishers generally split revenue from synch licenses 50-50.

Forbes has posted that Netflix reportedly plans to cut its spending costs by $300 million in 2023 largely because the company had to postpone its initiative to limit password and account sharing, which was expected to generate new revenue. The powerful streamer had initially planned to restrict password sharing in the first quarter.

One positive thing is that while global streaming is slowing, the industry is more practiced in aggressively retrieving revenue from foreign markets.

Yeah, without a doubt. So the money is flowing. You are seeing more Neighboring Rights coming through and coming online. There are increases in what someone was earning 5 years ago to today, and it is dramatic, and it is going to continue to rise.

With Sound Royalties now operating in Canada after the recent hiring of Vanessa Thomas (as Regional Director of Business Development and Artist Relations), joining other international representatives in London and South America, you have had to learn about the scale of the specific challenges confronting the Canadian publishing and recording communities, and some of the intricacies of other potential revenue sources.

Canada does an amazing job with grants and other things supporting creatives that I wish we would see more of that domestically here in the United States, and even around the world in other countries. We are growing with Latin America and Europe. But yeah, there’s a lot more opportunities given to the artist there (in Canada).

Sound Royalties could well be a lifeline for those artists, writers, and producers when in a dispute with a label or with a publisher. Instead of their careers being stalled, they could move on to further projects with financial support1 and a partnership with Sound Royalties.

I remember that Sound Royalties teamed up with Lil Wayne in 2016 to help finance a number of his projects while he was locked in legal disputes. First in 2015 with Cash Money Records, as well as its co-founders Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. Wayne. Then, in 2016 slapping Cash Money’s distributor, Universal Music Group (UMG) with another lawsuit, claiming unpaid royalties from both his music, and from the artists his Young Money label helped foster, including Drake and Nicki Minaj.

Lil Wayne was appreciative of Sound Royalties’ support saying, “Sound Royalties understands the music world and is helping me utilize my past successes to fund and propel new projects and to continue creatively evolving.”

(Lil Wayne’s legal team had filed a federal lawsuit against UMG seeking over $40 million in damages, claiming that UMG was repaying its own debts with Young Money royalties following the $100 million advance it reportedly gave Cash Money. Two years later, Lil Wayne settled the two lawsuits with Cash Money Records and UMG, which paved the way for the release of, “Tha Carter V.” In June 2020, Lil Wayne sold Young Money’s entire catalog of masters for a reported $100 million to UMG.)

Those types of disputes are fairly common. So do artists, songwriters, and producers come to you for bridge funding in those cases as the only revenue an artist would be earning would be by touring?

Correct. If something raises a question about the royalty payout, they are frozen until that can be settled which squeezes the creative because it just stops their payment, and the money sits. So we regularly do get creatives coming to us looking for financing to bridge the gap.

Many hold the view that it was producer Norman Petty withholding royalties that led Buddy Holly to reluctantly join the lineup of the “Winter Dance Party” a tour of small towns in the frozen upper Midwest in 1959, where he died in a small plane crash along with J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and Ritchie Valens, near Clear Lake, Iowa on February 3^rd, 1959.

That’s just terrible.

Norman Petty was an independent producer who owned the Clovis, New Mexico studio where Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded most of their tunes between 1956 and 1958. In addition to taking control of Holly’s career and finances, Petty added his name to songwriting credits — a dubious, but not uncommon practice in those days.

Holly’s royalty rate on records sold was quite favorable for the time-5% 90% of the retail price of records sold.

However, as a co-writer with Jerry Allison and Petty, Holly only received 16 2/3^rd% of the songwriter royalties from the Crickets’ first hit, “That’ll Be the Day.”

The other 50% of the royalties went to music publishing companies Peer Southern Music, and Nor-Va-Jak Music-then owned by Norman and Vi Petty.

A cash-strapped Holly eventually grew resentful of Petty’s control, and he and his new wife, Maria Elena, visited Petty to end their partnership and seek his unpaid royalties.

In an interview with Reuters, Maria Elena Holly, recounted that Petty told his young protégé, “You know what, Buddy? I’m gonna say this to you. I’d rather see you dead than to give you the money now.”

In 1976, Paul McCartney, purchased the entire Holly song catalog—some 40 songs– from Petty. McCartney never shied away from talking about the influence of Buddy Holly and the Crickets on the Beatles, even pointing out that a version of “That’ll Be the Day” was the first song that he and John Lennon would record in a small Liverpool studio.

After Holly’s death, his family chased alleged unpaid royalties from Universal Music Group label for decades.

Tell me about providing significant funding to Too Lost, the rapidly growing independent music, technology publishing, and distribution company that serves more than 185,000 artists and labels. As of August 2022, Sound Royalties has funded the company for a combined total of $5.3 million enabling Too Lost to retain full equity of their firm while it continued building its catalog and operations.

What was the attraction to you working with Too Lost?

For Too Lost, the attraction was they are an organization similar to ours with a mission to empower and protect artists, songwriters, producers, and performers. Working with us enabled them to raise capital, and retain full equity in their company. Like with what we do with artists, we don’t take ownership, and we didn’t with them. That became a waterfall effect in what they were doing with the creative, and that was very attractive to us. To be able to provide the funding like we normally do without taking ownership of a company that is protecting and empowering artists, performers, producers and songwriters.

That was quite a chunk of money to advance to a company.

Earlier you mentioned the $5,000 as being the minimum (of our involvement). That may have to go up just because of the amount of volume of deals that are coming through. But our goal is to help as many as possible, and that is why we put the bar so low but on the top end, we will advance $10 million for an income stream. So a creative could come with multiple incomes and get tens of millions dollars.

C’mon, you set the entry level at $5,000 initially to have bait in the water to attract as many creatives as possible and also to proclaim that Sound Royalties was destined to be a significant player win entertainment. You knew you were going to attract a lot of people with that minimum amount.

Absolutely, and it’s a great service to as many writers that we can work with but as that volume has gone up the cost of processing a transaction tends to be more.

Back to your initial comment, I think that it was Quincy Jones who said that “publishing is a penny business, but there’s a whole lot of pennies.” Now that it’s streaming it has become a micro penny business but there’s even more micro pennies, right?

There’s so much more revenue flowing through now.

Prior to the music business becoming the first industry to have a physical commodity that could be digitized, uploaded to the web, and easily pirated, music publishing was referred to as “the widget business” as deals were often being made on a song-by-song basis.

I hadn’t heard that one.

Old-time publishers would say, “We sell widgets, but we sell a lot of widgets.”

Yes.

Traditionally, music publishers balanced working their catalogs while nurturing new writers. A music publisher used to walk a songwriter/artist to a label to find that money.

Labels being king had all of the money.

The unbundling of the album by Napster, iTunes, and Spotify led to the music industry being downsized from a dollars business to a dime business. Publishers had to first grow their businesses by acquisitions, and moving further into foreign markets.

Also, following downsizing, major labels jettisoned certain services, as songwriters pushed for more than synchronizations and writer collaboration opportunities as well as marketing plans, and brand marketing from their music publisher. Songwriters pushed their publishers to get proper compensation from new media for music usage. Publishers continued to further develop their songwriters by walking them to a label, but numerous music publishers also tipped their toes into the label pond.

So the identity of the music publishing sector began to change.

Music being consumed via streaming rather than being purchased has brought about profound industry shifts; from the value of music to the management of rights. Certainly, major labels continue to seek to participate in publishing. and many of the smaller independent labels now need publishing revenue streams to exist.

At the same time, more and more companies like BMG Rights Management have become music rights companies handling publishing and master rights as well as other ancillary rights.

Plus, with digital, the industry, thus your own business, became increasingly more global.

Correct.

Securing investment from international sources, especially in Europe, can be daunting.

Well yeah if you use a bank in Europe their rates are similar to banks in North America, right? But if you go to Latin America and you are highly credit worthy and low risk, they are still in the upper teens from a traditional bank. So it’s not just hard, it’s expensive.

Major labels segregated music for decades by having Urban and Latin departments. The internet has done what radio wasn’t fully able to do; that is fully desegregate music. Radio formats were a form of segregation. The internet broadens the scope of the market. I find many of the Latin and hip hop and rap stars to be the smartest people in the marketplace.

Urban and Latin communities were the first to understand that the artist is the product and one that could be developed into other forms of entertainment and merchandise.

American banks, being then almost lily white, were not about to open their doors to the Latin and Urban worlds. So many artists established full-service production companies as well as artist management affiliates and film and television production affiliates with the  attitude, “We make music, but we are also a product.”

Yep.

At one time, hip hop and rap didn’t travel outside North America but artists like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Puffy Daddy, Eminem, LL Cool J, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Ludacris, and Drake today have worldwide followings with consumers of American pop culture.

The 2017 success of “Despacito,” performed by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and later in a bilingual version with Justin Bieber, kickstarted a new wave of Latin music mainstream success for the likes of J Balvin, Rosalía, Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and others.

“Despacito” transformed the way Latin music is viewed and listened to today. You couldn’t avoid the song if you tried.

Streaming has made it easier for listeners to discover music scenes such as reggaeton and Latin trap without those artists needing the marketing machine of a major label. In other words, audiences around the world are crossing over into Latin music.

Yes. It’s incredible. It’s a worldwide market. As the money starts to grow and creatives are smart in terms of turning to the world market “Despacito” was the simplest example. Or the clearest early example. The numbers that they are doing in Latin America are incredible.

In 2017  “Despacito” soared to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed there for a then-record 16 weeks, “Despacito” broke  all sorts of records, including most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, and is the most-viewed music video on YouTube with 8.13 billion views as of Apr 17th, 2023.

As Leila Cobo, author of “Decoding ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of Latin Music.” wrote in Billboard in 2022, “But half a decade later, the starkest legacy left by Despacito’ is how it changed the world’s perception of Latin music, and how it changed the way the industry itself regarded and marketed music in Spanish.”

One sector virtually ignored by mainstream media is EDM. It is a music genre that has experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity since 2010 starting with its iconic artists David Guetta, Deadmau5, Tiesto, Ritchie Hawtin, Armin van Buuren, Swedish House Mafia, Calvin Harris, and Skrillex since  followed by Marshmello, Martin Garrix, ODESZA, EVAN GIIA, Louis the Child, TroyBoi, and Jai Wolf who each are now doing great live numbers.

Yeah, absolutely but they (EDM artists) sample a lot. I think that is what it is and it’s different. There are a lot of mixtapes and there’s a lot of sampling. I think that their revenue stream because of that is going to be live performances.

Sound Royalties is part of the GoDigital Media Group, a privately held multi-national, diversified conglomerate, headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California.

Founded in 2006 by Jason Peterson, GoDigital Media Group is focused on technology-enabled and vertically integrated intellectual property rights management.

Under GoDigital Media Group’s sizeable umbrella are also: Cinq Music Group, a pioneer in combining the services of distributor, record label, and financial institution; Latido Networks, a holding company for media companies, Mitú and Latido Networks that includes Latido Music, and NGL-mitú, the Latino media and video brand; VidaPromo, the multi-platform network for Latin Rhythm music; and AdShare, providing social media monetization services for music, film, television, and sports rights-holders online.

Also, there’s YogaWorks Inc., the world’s premier provider of yoga instruction.

Additionally, there’s also Eastern Mountain Sports, a leading outdoor apparel brand and retailer, and Bob’s Stores, a retailer of apparel, and footwear with a 68-year history in the Northeastern U.S. Both were purchased from U.K.-based Frasers Group for $70 million last year.

Where does Sound Royalties fit into GoDigital Media Group’s media and monetization mix?

When I founded Sound Royalties, and then moved it from Virginia to Florida, I had a friend and partner who had a company, Novation Ventures in Florida, that was a specialty finance company. So who do you hire? Do you want to hire two people? Do you hire an accountant? Do you hire a lawyer? Do you hire a researcher? Well, if you put it against this company (GoDigital Media Group), you can use half of a lawyer, and a quarter of an accountant, and two researchers.

Leverage the employees across those platforms, and that started a Petri dish for a startup, and it really helped Sound Royalties take off.

Is Novation Ventures still around?

Yes, but it’s not tied to Sound Royalties. They were owned by a private equity firm. When they came to us and said, “You guys are doing great, but we are 13 years into a 10 year fun, and we need to go to market with this.” So we looked at a bunch of companies that were interested in acquiring and becoming the new financial partner for Sound Royalties and  GoDigital was the choice that we made from the various entities that came forward that were interested in acquiring Sound Royalties, and to this day I believe it was the best choice that we made. Jason and GoDigital are a great financial partner for helping Sound Royalties continue with our mission.

GoDigital’s leadership team consists of C-suite executives with in-depth retail expertise, hailing from widely recognized global brands such as BCBG, Gap, and Next. With these affiliated companies under the GoDigital corporate umbrella, there’s great potential for crossover synergy.

If you look at all of the (GoDigital-affiliated) companies, all of the companies-YogaWorks, Bob’s Stores, and Eastern Mountain Sports–they are all run independently and separately. Sound Royalties continues to be run independently and separately as it always has.

Are you still a co-owner of the boutique Studio Bank headquartered in Nashville, with retail branches in Franklin, and Clarksville, Tennessee?

That’s an FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) federally regulated and insured bank and it continues to grow and do well.

You are still co-owner?

Yes. There’s a group of us (investors, and bankers) invested in the foundation of that.

How long have you been living in Nashville?

Five or six years.

Over the years, Nashville has undergone a sizeable transformation. The city, and the surrounding region, experienced 16% population growth over the past decade, compared to 6% on average for the entire U.S., making it the 7th fastest growing large Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The current metro area population of Nashville is 1,315,000, a 1.62% increase from 2022.

A different town than it was.

There are 32 buildings going up right now that are 20 stories or more.

Downtown Nashville has seen an exceptional amount of public and private investment in the past decade including mixed-use luxury commercial and residential projects, retail towers, hotels, and residential units.

It’s incredible. It’s like Dubai or something.

As you were graduating from the University of Maryland, College Park what career did you have in mind?

(Laughing) I didn’t know. But while in college, I found software and that is were that path and pursuit happened. My degree is in criminal justice due to my interest in law.  I first focused my interest in pre-law.

You became engaged with software early on, a decade before the market imploded.

It was taking off. It was in late ‘90s when the bubble burst on it. This was 8 or 10 years earlier as it was still growing. With software, if you go back to the ‘80s, there’s weren’t computer degrees per se. They weren’t as prevalent. So the computer companies were recruiting from music departments because the way the brain works for a musician is similar to the way of that as a programmer. They are writing songs, and they are writing code to create a story, to tell a story, to create an environment. And it is a similar mind-set.

Before the invention of the World Wide Web in 1993, most Internet access still was from personal computers and workstations directly connected to local area networks (LANs) or from dial-up connections using modems, and analog telephone lines.

By the mid-1990s, Netscape had about 80% of the browser market in the U.S. and Europe. Its only real competitor was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which first launched with Windows 95.

It wasn’t until Apple purchased Steve Job’s NeXT to improve Mac OS, and he returned to Apple, delivering an inspirational speech in 1997 detailing the future of Mac OS, leading Microsoft to invest $150 million in the firm that things began to change.

By 1998, the Apple iMac and PowerBook G3 were popular, and Apple was a force to be reckoned with.

Apple’s first iPhone in 2007 had a 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and topped out at just 16 GB of storage. It didn’t even support third-party apps.

The iPhone is only 16 years old.

Isn’t that amazing? What are we on now iPhone 15 generation?

The iPhone 15 series may still be several months away but leaks claim that Apple is planning to restrict the phone’s USB-C charging and data transfer speeds for all cables that are not certified through its Made for iPhone (MFi) program. In response, the European Union has threatened to ban the sale of iPhones in member countries.

Meanwhile, I’m looking to update my MacBook Pro, but I hesitate to get another. There are many reasons to want a MacBook Pro. They are highly lauded for their user-friendliness, performance, longevity, and having an enormous suite of high-quality software pre-installed. The issue is that MacBook Pros are extremely expensive, and it isn’t clear why.

I replaced mine three years ago after five years with the MacBook Pro, and I didn’t notice a change.  It didn’t speed up, it didn’t slow down. I’m not sure I needed to switch it out. They seem to go on forever.

Where are you originally from?

I was born and raised in the Silver Sprin-Olney Maryland area. My father was a government worker, s chief scientist for the Navy. My mom taught French cooking. I have an older brother.

Were you a concertgoer growing up?

Absolutely. I loved music. I just wanted to ride my bike, and play music. I played half a dozen instruments. Those were the two things that I wanted to do. My dad was extremely bright. Two PhDs, and two Masters degrees, all in different languages from top schools. He was an aeronautical engineer, an electrical engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist. So to my parents, I was stupid. My dad was like, “Unless you straighten up, you are going to be a ditch digger for all your years.” I just wanted to ride my bike, and play music, and I eventually found my way back to music.

The Washington D.C./Baltimore Maryland corridor has been the traditional home for folk, jazz, and bluegrass, and due to the turnover of people in the cities from overseas, also worldbeat music as well. You don’t see such broad musical choices in many other American cities

The corridor houses The Birchmere, the legendary music hall in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, heralded by many as one of the finest music venues in the world.

I don’t know if you know that club.

Of course, yeah.

Neko Case and Stewart Copeland were born in Alexandria, and it has also been the hometown of David Grohl, Jim Morrison, as well as Cass Elliot, and John Philips of the Mamas & the Papas,

Yeah, exactly. A lot of people don’t realize it but Old Town Alexandria, Virginia (a city along the western bank of the Potomac River, approx. 6 miles south of downtown Washington) Jim Morrison, and David Grohl, they were right off Walnut Street. I lived in Alexandria a bit near the end, but it was on the Maryland side is where I started, and then moved to Northern Virginia and from there to good ole Nashville.

Jim Morrison moved to Northern Virginia as a kid after his father, a rear admiral in the Navy, was assigned to the Pentagon. The family lived for a time in the 1950s in a colonial house on a large corner plot at 310 Woodland Terrace.in Alexandria’s North Ridge neighborhood.

In the spring of 1999, David Grohl moved from Seattle and bought a house on Nicholson Lane in the Del Ray North Ridge area of Alexandria. Fellow Foos Taylor Hawkins and Nate Mendel also moved in. Here, Grohl built a 24-track recording studio in the basement, and the trio recorded virtually their entire third album, “There is Nothing Left to Lose”

There’s the Wharf in DC which is pretty good. It is relatively new and has a lot of acts to see. Another great music venue is The Anthem (in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington.)

(The Wharf is a multi-billion dollar development about 4-5 years old on the Potomac. There are several venues there. The big one is The Anthem, operated by IMP (It’s My Party/Seth Hurwitz) which seats up to 2,800, and 6,000 for standing. It is rented out to outside promoters. The other venues are Union Stage and Pearl Street Warehouse.)

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Sound Royalties Founder & CEO Alex Heiche appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Robert Deaton is a much-loved and respected individual who leads an extraordinary life.

Deaton has notably served as the executive producer of the CMA Awards on ABC-TV since 2007.

In 2021, the Country Music Association extended its long-standing partnership with Deaton which includes the annual CMA Awards in addition to “CMA Fest,” and “CMA Country Christmas.”

The new pact will see the highly respected television producer and award-winning director in the CMA producer’s chair through 2026.

Earlier in the same year, the CMA renewed its contract with its network television partner ABC-TV also through to 2026.

Deaton also currently serves as executive producer of the Billboard Music Awards on NBC-TV.

Deaton is in such high demand because he delivers.

As Garth Brooks said when the CMA extended Deaton’s contract for its television properties, “Any gig you have with Robert Deaton, you know, as an artist and as a viewer, it’s gonna be killer. I have had the great fortune of sharing some magical moments throughout the years with Robert. He is a gift to all of us within Country Music and beyond.”

One of Deaton’s first professional jobs in Nashville after leaving Fayetteville, North Carolina was as a 19-year-old production assistant on a Crisco commercial with Loretta Lynn at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. The next week he did some work at the historical RCA building in Nashville’s Music Row with singer/guitarist/actor Jerry Reed.

Deaton then thought, “I have made it.”

After a stint in the local freelance film community, Deaton got offered a job at Knight Ridder Broadcasting’s ABC affiliate WKRN-TV 2. He was in the news department for the first year, and then he worked in the marketing department. for the next couple of years.

His production work eventually gained national media exposure, airing on such programs as “Good Morning America,” “The Phil Donahue Show,” and “ABC News,” to name a few.

In 1985, Deaton and George Flanigen co-founded the full-service film production company, Deaton Flanigen Productions. Together, they compiled an impressive catalog of  500 music videos, including for Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Alabama, Brooks & Dunn, Kid Rock, Kiss, Gretchen Wilson, Rascal Flatts, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Diamond Rio, and many others.

The pair produced and directed national commercials, music videos, and internationally distributed concert video projects for such clients as The Walt Disney Company, ABC Sports, “Live with Regis & Kelly,” “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,” NBC, Warner/Reprise, The RCA Label Group, MCA Records, Arista Records, and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Deaton Flanigen Productions received a handful of prestigious national and regional awards before the two dissolved their partnership a decade ago.

Meanwhile, Deaton had become a two-time Emmy winner with the “Are You Ready for Some Football?” opening for ABC’s “Monday Night Football.” He also produced “Sports Illustrated: 50 Years of Beautiful” on NBC, as well as the “Soul2Soul” Las Vegas residency for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in 2013. He was also executive producer of “The Passion” (2016) with Tyler Perry for Fox Broadcasting.

Long fascinated by the Rolling Stones, and their country-styled “Wild Horses” and “Dead Flowers” roots, and with a deep love of authentic country music (alongside an appreciation of all things Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette) that hearkens back to growing up on the music of Hank Williams, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis and other stars of the Grand Ole Opry from a young age, it was a natural moment for Deaton to come up with the concept of the Rolling Stone country music tribute album, “Stoned Cold Country,” released on March 17th on BMG.

After all, hearing Ronnie Milsap’s electrifying 1976 live cover of “Honky Tonk Women,” Deaton had believed it to be, “one of the greatest country music songs of all time.”

“Stoned Cold Country” was born over “three bottles of white wine” at Angelini Osteria in Los Angeles with  BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch as Deaton’s dining companion. Masuch enthusiastically approved the album’s concept.

Over the course of the “Stoned Cold Country” sessions, Deaton worked intensely with artists, and with an army of nearly 70 Nashville studio musicians, including associate music producer and guitarist Danny Raderl, and Chuck Leavell, the Stones’ longtime piano player, in shining a light on the Stones’ country influences as well as on country music at large, but more specifically on some of its most maverick contemporary artists.

Featuring Eric Church, Steve Earle, Little Big Town, the Zac Brown Band, Brooks & Dunn, Brothers Osborne & The War And Treaty, Lainey Wilson, Jimmie Allen, Elvie Shane, Ashley McBryde, and Elle King, the 14-track set is a raucous salute to the British group’s 60th anniversary.

Early releases from “Stoned Cold Country” have included: Jimmie Allen’s impassioned rendition of “Miss You”; “Sympathy for the Devil” by Elvie Shane; “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by Lainey Wilson; and “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)” by Brothers Osborne & The War And Treaty.

While Deaton shrugs off talk about his tenure as country music television’s most storied name and downplays the “buzz” of getting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to sign off on the “Stoned Cold Country” project, you can tell he truly loves what he does.

You are a guy who could easily wear a T-shirt proclaiming, “Reinvent yourself!”

Thank you. I appreciate that comment because that is all that I’ve tried to do. I think part of the reinvention is to just always move creatively and be doing stuff that I have never done before.

How have you been able to do all the things you’ve done in your career while being a husband and raising three children?

I’ll tell you how. I don’t have hobbies. Sometimes I use that as a joke, but it’s true. I don’t play golf. When my kids were growing up, I made sure that I went to all of their baseball and football games. My son is a drummer, so I was always going to buy him another piece of his drum set. So it is about family, and it is about the work because what I do, I love more than anything. I love our (country) community, and I can’t remember a day, even when I was a kid, that I didn’t always know what I wanted to do. The day after I graduated from high school, my bags were packed. My car was packed.

Where did you go?

I drove to Nashville. I wanted to be here.

You really wanted to get out of Fayetteville, North Carolina?

I did. They called it Fayettenam back in those days. I grew up near the military base (Fort Bragg). I loved growing up in Fayetteville.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, the 500 block of Hay Street in Fayetteville was notorious for crime. Bragg Boulevard was populated by strip clubs and crime was rampant in the ’70s and ’80s. Fayetteville rappers J. Cole (with “Land of Snakes” in 2013), and Morray (with “Trenches” in 2021) have each referenced Fayettenam.

Growing up in North Carolina, your father worked in radio and television. He was a celebrity anchor at WECT-TV, Channel 6 in Wilmington. He hosted a Friday night country music show that Grand Ole Opry cast members would perform on if they were in the area.

That’s true. My father, when we lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, did have a country music television show on Friday nights. Back then there were what four television stations? The major networks and PBS. People didn’t necessarily know the difference between something that was local, and a show that was all over the country. Well, he had “The George Deaton Show” every Friday night, and I was on the show as a square dancer.

Artists at the time came up through the touring system.

There was very little routing back then. They just booked the dates and got on the bus.

At 6, you sat alongside Jerry Lee Lewis as he performed. At 12, you were running around backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. From an early age, you met all of the country artists of the day.

I was. I grew up with these great artists and although I was little, I was going backstage and hanging out with the artists. I met Buck Owens and Charley Pride. I’m sure part of me was a nuisance. I had questions. It was just fascinating to me, meeting the stars of the Grand Ole Opry. Back then the Grand Ole Opry laid out an annual event with pictures, and cards with who the artists were, I collected those.

My favorite country album of all time is still Buck Owens (and his Buckaroos) “Live at Carnegie Hall” (which reached #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart in 1966). I think the reason is that the sound of that record, it reminded me of being back in the (TV) studio when I was little. And that is what it sounded like then.

In his Allmusic review of the “Live at Carnegie Hall” album, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: “Owens and the Buckaroos had to deliver a stellar performance, and they did—the group sounded like dynamite, tearing through a selection of their classic hits with vigor. Several decades removed from the performance itself, what really comes through is how musical and gifted the Buckaroos were, particularly Don Rich.”

In the past, I worked as a researcher for Canadian actor and radio host Don Harron who was a member of the “Hee Haw” cast. I spent considerable time around Buck Owens during a 10^th anniversary “Hee Haw” show in 1978.  He took a shine to me because of a story I told him about meeting “Dangerous” Don Rich who had passed away only four years earlier in a motorcycle accident.

In 1969, I had met the Buckaroos in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition. At Don’s request, I had walked him and the Buckaroos, all in their Nathan Turk Western-wear suits, through the midway to lunch on a Canadian specialty, peameal bacon (a wet-cured, unsmoked back bacon made from trimmed lean boneless pork loin rolled in cornmeal).

I wish Larry that Don was in the…Don needs to be in the Country Hall of Fame in my opinion. He is the greatest high-harmony singer of all time.

What’s telling about the country music artists of the 1960s and 1970s is that so many of them were adept at working on television, which was a primary way for them to become better known. Other than appearing on the Grand Ole Opry radio show, there were all these regional country television shows around America, such as “Flatt and Scruggs’ Grand Ole Opry Show,” “Billy Walker’s Country Carnival,” “The Arthur Smith Show,” “The Porter Wagner Show,” and “Town Hall Party,” as well as “The Spade Cooley Show.” and “Cal’s Corral.” in Southern California.

Country artists of the 1960s and 1970s knew how to work TV cameras, and they knew about studio lighting. They were able to perform in one take and be on their way.

Yes. If you think about it Larry, as I said my dad had the regional television show every Friday night. So if the Grand Ole Opry stars were in town or if some of them were traveling through, they always made sure that they were on the show. But if you also remember back then, and I don’t know if people remember, within those years there was a lot of television going on. There was “Pop Goes The Country” hosted by Ralph Emery, and “The Porter Wagner Show, and I don’t know if you remember a show in Charlotte, North Carolina, there was Arthur Smith, and he had a television show. “The Arthur Smith Show” (circa the 1960s, filmed at WBTV).

Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith was best known for “Guitar Boogie” (aka “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”) which he recorded in 1945. An early example of hillbilly boogie, it was a link between 1940s Western swing and honky-tonk and 1950s rockabilly. By 1949, “Guitar Boogie” sold over three million copies, and reached #8 on the Hot Country Songs chart, and #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 1957, Smith founded the first commercial recording studio in the Southeast In Charlotte. He produced radio and television shows for a number of other artists, and he produced and hosted his own radio program, “Top of the Morning,” which was syndicated for an unbroken span of 29 years. In the 1970s, Smith produced a weekly, 30-minute program syndicated in more than 90 TV markets at its peak.

There were all of these syndicated country shows at the time. Bill Anderson had his television show (“The Bill Anderson Show,” which was taped in Canada and Nashville in the mid-60s.) Television for artists back then, that was the way to get to people. I remember when I was a kid I would go to a gymnasium in a high school to see Buck Owens. It wasn’t like they were playing big huge arenas, but they could get to people by the way of television. I love seeing all of those old shows and all those artists.

A lot of TV talent has come from Nashville. Few people today talk about producer, music arranger, and music director Bill Walker.

Right, all that stuff for TNN.

He was Johnny Cash’s musical director (for ABC-TV “The Johnny Cash Show” which ran from June 7, 1969, to March 31, 1971. When Johnny Cash would say, “Goodnight Bill Walker,” the camera would zoom down to Bill Walker.

Australian-born Bill Walker holds a distinctive seat in popular music. In the ‘60s, he worked for RCA Records in South Africa, recording visiting RCA artists from the United States. When Jim Reeves came to South Africa to film “Kimberley Jim,” Walker was hired to write the score.

He also recorded Floyd Cramer, Duane Eddy, and John D. Loudermilk while in South Africa.

You are one of a handful of people I know who has extraordinary respect for heritage country, and a mutual respect for the newer contemporary country artists, particularly the nonconformists.

There was a time when many country radio broadcasters in North America avoided promoting themselves as country. They absolutely steered clear of identifiable country artists while favoring pop country acts.

But I’m like you.

If you are a country fan, you are a country fan; and some of the heritage acts should be considered in the context of being like our aunts and uncles. Neither of us has issues with Americana, bro country,  Country Pop, Country Rock, Rockabilly, Cowboy, or edgy country artists like Hank Williams Jr., Steve Earle, or Eric Church. It is what it is.

Yeah, I agree. I accept all of those. I feel that it’s unnoticed, but country music has always been a lot of things. When I grew up hearing Merle Haggard doing “Working Man Blues” on the radio, it was at the same time you could hear Eddie Arnold doing “Make The World Go Away” or Don Gibson singing “Oh, Lonesome Me.”

We have always had different styles of music under what we call the country music banner. For example, I love listening to Tim McGraw or Chris Stapleton who is an unbelievably incredible vocalist, but I also love Dan + Shay who are equally amazing vocalists. I just love all that, and I feel that we should embrace all that because, as I said, that is what country music has always been.

You’ve worked extensively with Hank William Jr. over the years. I’m a big fan, and I was a friend of his late manager Merle Kilgore. I can remember a time when country radio backed away from “that shit kicker country stuff” to focus more on going uptown toward Country Pop.

Heck, country was always going uptown, aka “Countrypolitan,” back with Ray Price in the ‘60s, and Crystal Gayle and the smooth Nashville Sound in the ‘70s.

Nothing has changed.

Yeah, it’s funny, and it’s interesting. Every time that we start getting away from country music, there is some artist like Ricky Skaggs that turns us back to who we are.

When I was growing up, I didn’t know that Hank Williams Sr. was country. I knew that Ernest Tubb, Ray Acuff, Cowboy Copas, and Kitty Wells were country. But Hank was on Hit Parade stations, and his music was on almost every jukebox in our neighborhood.

Ray Price was in the same vein. He was like that too. Some people didn’t know that they were listening to country music when they were listening to Ray Price or Patsy Cline.

In the 60s, Ray consorted with violins, even recording and touring with small orchestras. Grand Ole Opry executives threw a fit when Ray appeared, but he had a #1 hit in 1970 with Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times,” a song which won him a Grammy, and which returned him to the top of the country charts after a nearly 11-year absence.

You know that it wasn’t until 1996 that Ray Price was brought into the Country Music Hall of Fame? With over 100 country charted hits, he should’ve been inducted years earlier. From his landmark 1956 recording of “Crazy Arms” to such hits as “Faded Love,” “Heartaches by the Number,” and “Release Me,” his contribution to country music is undisputed, despite his Countrypolitan orchestration.

It’s so true. Or Johnny Cash putting horns on “Ring of Fire.” But again the country music genre is so many things. The genre has so many different styles and types of artists. I think that is what makes country music so strong.

Co-written by June Carter, and Merle Kilgore who was also a singer, songwriter, radio host, and actor, Johnny Cash’s 1963 hit “Ring of Fire” was originally recorded in a folk style by Carter’s sister Anita, but Cash liked the song, and in a dream, he heard it with the Mexican-style horns that he incorporated into his version.

Can I say one thing, Larry? You and I are bonded because Merle Kilgore was one of my dearest friends.

Hard to believe Merle has been gone for 17 years. He was a bigger-than-life character. I once went up to see him in Paris, Tennessee, where he was living and working with Hank Jr. We go out to lunch locally to have chicken because his wife Judy had him on a diet. We get to the restaurant, and they had run out of chicken for the day.

(Laughter) That’s funny. You know that I worked with Hank Jr. for 7 years doing the opening for ABC’s Monday Night Football.

That you twice won an Emmy for.

I sure did. Merle Kilgore was one of a kind. There’s nobody like him, close to him since then. Just truly an amazing human being. I loved him,

Merle and I bonded when he was in Toronto attending a TNN function at the Hockey Hall of Fame. We talked of the late country icon Johnny Horton. I then sang him “Johnny Reb” a Confederate soldier’s song he wrote that was popularized by Johnny Horton in 1959.

“Cause you fought all the way, Johnny Reb, Johnny Reb

You fought all the way, Johnny Reb

I heard your teeth chatter from the cold outside

Saw the bullets open up the wounds in your side

I saw the young boys as they begin to fall

You had tears in your eyes, ’cause you couldn’t help at all

But you fought all the way, Johnny Reb, Johnny Reb

You fought all the way, Johnny Reb.”

A revitalized brand identity has been crafted around country music in recent years.

Sarah Trahern, the dynamic CEO of the Country Music Association (CMA) often refers to country music as being “the biggest tent.” Not only has the CMA taken the lead of late in the country sector’s ambitious initiatives addressing racial and gender inequality, and even gender inclusion, but also in better preserving the genre’s legacy.

I love that you pieced Broadway and film star Jennifer Hudson and Chris Stapleton together at the CMA Awards in 2021, performing a medley of Willie Nelson’s “Night Life,” and “You Are My Sunshine” (co-written by Charles Mitchell, and two-time governor of Louisiana, Jimmie Davis) from Aretha Franklin’s catalog.

That was one incredible TV moment.

That was truly incredible. We were blown away by that. Jennifer wanted to meet me when she was doing a screening of (the 2021 film) “Respect” here in Nashville at The National Museum of African American Music. One thing led to another, and I didn’t realize at the time how many country songs Aretha had recorded. So I was like, “There’s a connection.” And that’s how we ended up putting Jennifer and Chris Stapleton together.

Well, after all, your three favorite singers are Tammy Wynette, Ella Fitzgerald, and Natalie Cole. So Jennifer Hudson would be in your sweet spot.

That’s correct. They are, exactly. Those are my three favorites. I can listen to them forever. I’m also sad at the same time because we will never hear them again live. Sadly taking somebody so soon.

There’s something that you said about this (diversity) is what country music has always been at its best.

In the ‘70s, we had Charley Pride, and he was having hit after hit after hit. We also had (a founding father of Chicano rock ‘n’ roll and rock en español) Freddy Fender’s “Before The Next Teardrop Falls.” And we had Tejano with Johnny Rodriguez in the format. And (Cajun) Eddy Raven. We are so much better when we are inclusive which we should be.

In the ‘70s, Latino country singers Freddy Fender and Johnny Rodriguez were embraced as country stars as were, to a lesser degree, Scotty McCreery, Tish Hinojosa. Rick Trevino, Vince Mira, and more recently Lindi Ortega and Ricky Valido are highly visible in the format.

Charley Pride broke into country music in the mid-60s when Jim Crow laws and customs were still present. Black artists, in general, had a tough time of it in entertainment. In 1966, RCA signed Charley who went on to have over 30 #1 country hits, and as many Top 5 country hits. He sold an estimated 70 million records over a 50-year career.

There have only been a handful of Black country stars since Charley, Stoney Edwards, Linda Martel, and Cleve Francis had followings just after Charley. Now there’s African Americans Mickey Guyton, Darius Rucker, Kane Brown, Jimmie Allen, Trini Triggs, Blanco Brown and even Lil Nas X who rose to prominence with his 2019 country rap single “Old Town Road.”

I like today’s country music. We are growing so much. We’ve got the music of Kane Brown, we’ve got Mickey Guyton, and we have all of these great artists that we are just opening up our door to. And, as I said, we are just better when we are so inclusive.

When I grew up crossover hits– considered country by genre but embraced by pop audiences—were common. A lot of country hits blended in with pop and rock hits on Top 40 radio formats.

Patti Page’s “The Tennessee Waltz” in 1950 reached #2 on Billboard’s Country Singles chart, and #1 on Billboard’s Pop Chart for 13 weeks. Patti Page wasn’t stylistically all that different from Patsy Cline, even with her first country hit “Walking After Midnight” in 1957 that reached #2 on the Billboard country music chart, and #12 on its pop chart.

Crossover hits have a long-distinguished history, particularly In the ‘60s and ‘70s and ‘80s as Johnny Cash, Skeeter Davis, Charlie Rich, Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Freddy Fender, B.J. Thomas, Olivia Newton-John, Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton. Eddie Rabbitt, Linda Ronstadt, and John Denver continually straddled the country pop line.

Few could match Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” as a crossover pop hit. It topped the Billboard Country chart and reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

More recently there’s been country-pop crossovers from Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, Florida Georgia Line, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Lady A, and Sheryl Crow to name a few.

As country shifted back in recent years to its roots with Chris Stapleton, Dierks Bentley, Luke Combs, Brothers Osborne, Jason Aldean, Ashley McBryde, Jimmie Allen, Thomas Rhet,t and others, genre-defying hook-ups have become increasingly popular.

Among the recent hookups are: Dan + Shay who teamed up with Justin Bieber, Maren Morris with Hozier, Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Nas X, and Kane Brown teaming up with Marshmello.

Multi-generational, and cross-genre hookups continue to be evident at country award shows.

Alanis Morissette, Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Madeline Edwards, and Morgan brought the house down  at the CMT Music Awards on April 2^nd with a rendition of the 1995 “Jagged Little Pill” confessional hit “You Oughta Know.”

Also Carly Pearce joined Gwen Stefani for a spirited performance of No Doubt’s 1995 classic, “Just a Gir,” and the Black Crowes joined Darius Rucker for a raunchy version of their 1990 hit, “She Talks to Angels.”

While the “Stoned Cold Country” album was born from a restaurant meet-up in Los Angeles with BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch, it helped that BMG is also the publishing company for Rolling Stones’ main songwriters, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards. Nevertheless, the album ended up with only three BMG-affiliated artists, Lainey Wilson, Jimmie Allen, and Elvie Shane.

BMG was so supportive. I asked, “What rules do I have to play by?” They were like, “None. We want you to make the best record that you possibly can.”

So I tried really hard to get artists that had the same DNA as the Rolling Stones and as Mick and Keith. That’s hard to do because, of course, they are one of a kind. Certainly, Eric Church does things his way. He’s an outlaw. He’s a modern-day outlaw and he doesn’t conform.

All of those artists in their own way are trailblazers.

Lainey Wilson, for example, moves to town (Nashville) and lived in a camper trailer (outside of a recording studio) for 10 years, and now they call her “an overnight success.” But it’s an “overnight success” that took 10 years.

Nobody is an overnight success in Nashville. It is one of the toughest entertainment centers in the world. During the early 1980s, for example, Randy Travis was rejected by every major record label in Nashville. He worked at The Nashville Palace as a cook and singer, performing under the name Randy Ray. He recorded an independent album “Live at the Nashville Palace,” which eventually led to a deal with Warner Bros. Records Nashville.

Right. Garth Brooks also got turned by every label in town.

Lynn Shults, Capitol Nashville’s VP of A&R. specifically extended Garth a “handshake” agreement on the evening of May 11, 1988, after his showcase at Nashville’s famed Bluebird Café.

“I don’t remember what his first song was,” said Shults later, “but I’m pretty sure the second one was ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes.’ Garth just blew me away.”

At the time. Shults had worked closely with Kenny Rogers, Anne Murray, Crystal Gayle, and Tanya Tucker.  Ironically, his tenure with Brooks was short-lived. At the end of 1989, Capitol came under new management and Shults, Capitol Nashville president Jim Foglesong and others were fired.

Lynn became director of country operations for Billboard where I met him.

You know I produced Garth’s stadium dates in Dublin, Ireland this past year.

Garth Brooks says his five Irish gigs at Croke Park last September were the first time he ever sold out all of his concerts in one country. Garth was due to play five concerts in Dublin in 2014, but the gigs were canceled following a licensing dispute with locals around the venue and the local authorities.

It’s important to emphasize that “Stoned Cold Country” is not just about superstar country artists.

It wasn’t important to me the level of superstar that you are (for the record), that is not what this is about. It was trying to find the right artists that are kind of the same cloth as the Rolling Stones. Those artists, whether they are famous or whether they are not famous; or whether or not they would still be playing in clubs, and dive bars, it’s all about music. That is what they are about. They are not about the publicity machine. They are just real artists, and I felt that it was important that we did that (approach) with the group of artists that we have.

One of my favorite artists is Elvie Shane who covered “Sympathy for the Devil” on “Stoned Cold Country.” I just love his ode to blue-collar workers, “Forgotten Man,” which fits alongside Hank Williams Jr. heartland rockers like “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

Well, I love Elvie. (Before the album) I didn’t know Elvie. What happened was Clarence Spalding, who is Elvie’s manager, and one of my dearest friends, called me, and he was like, “What about putting Elvie on this record?” So one weekend I was like, “I’m going to listen to everything that Elvie has got out.” So I went and listened to everything, and I told Clarence, “Absolutely, Elvie should be on this record.”

So we cut “Sympathy for the Devil,” and it was just a great session.

So 10:30 at night, I’m at home, and I get a call from Elvie. And this just goes to show you what kind of artist, and what kind of person that Elvie is. I thought Elvie was calling to talk to me about the session or about something that he wants to do or that he wants to re-record something. It wasn’t any of that. He called me, and said, “I love the spirit of this record and this whole album. I know who you have on it, but there is one artist that I feel you should put on there.” I was like, “Who is that?” He said, “Steve Earle.” I said, “Absolutely. And first of all, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I love Steve Earle. ‘Guitar Town’ (1986) changed Nashville. If you send me his number, I will call him tomorrow.”

And that is what I did.

Recording “Angie” is a bit of a change-up for Steve Earle, but like every artist on the album,  he put all his love into his performance.

I also loved what Maren Morris did with “Dead Flowers.” I’ve been a fan of hers since the single “80s Mercedes” (2016). Have you ever heard Scottish singer Frankie Miller’s version of “Dead Flowers?”

I have not, actually. I have not.

Watch it on YouTube. Frankie Miller does the finest version of “Dead Flowers” I’ve ever heard.

I will definitely listen to it.

In the 1999 BBC Television documentary “Stubborn Kinda Fella” Rod Stewart states that Frankie Miller, “was the only white singer to have brought a tear” to his eye.

Among the core musicians on “Stoned Cold Country” are Danny Rader (acoustic guitar), Kenny Greenberg (electric guitar), Michael Rhodes (bass), Greg Morrow  (drums), and Mike Rojas (keyboards).

There are a couple of surprises, including Willie Nelson’s long-time sideman Mickey Raphael on harmonica for ““Miss You” with Broken Bow multi-tasker Jimmie Allen. That’s a real change-up.

It’s different on every track, but we had the great Michael Rhodes playing a lot of the bass tracks (plays on roughly half of the album’s songs). We had Gordon Mote playing piano on a bunch of tracks. We had Danny Rader playing on almost everything. He’s a great guitarist. And on “Shine A Light” with Koe Wetzel, that’s Chuck Leavall on piano.  What a great guy. He’s just the best.

We recently lost one of the good ones, Michael Rhodes.

Bassist Michael Rhodes–a 10-time Academy of Country Music Bass Player of the Year award-winner–died at his home in Nashville on March 4th. He was 69 years old. Over the course of a four decade-plus career, Rhodes worked with the likes George Strait, Dolly Parton, the Chicks, Kenny Chesney, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Wynonna Judd, Alan Jackson and Willie Nelson. Outside country, he worked with Lionel Richie, Stevie Nicks, Joss Stone, Brian Wilson, and India.Arie.

What studios did you work in?

We used Southern Ground Studios for a lot of the sessions. We also worked at Blackbird Studios, Neon Cross, Starstruck Studios, East Iris Studios, and Sound Emporium Studios, all in Nashville at The Castle Recording Studios in Franklin.

In recording “Stoned ColdCountry” I know you listened to the original Rolling Stones’ recordings over and over because the essence of the original Stones’ tracks are most certainly captured. Who did the arrangements?

I came in with the arrangements, basically. I always get inspiration from music. I say this a lot, that the music gives me the answers for everything. Even if I am writing a story. Whatever I am doing, if I can listen to some music, then I can immediately create something.

In recording “Stoned Cold Country” you didn’t use any click tracks.

I will tell you this is how I wanted to do it. I wanted everybody in the room at the same time. I wanted all of the musicians playing together. I wanted no click tracks. I would normally come in with a loose arrangement. I say loose, for example, I knew exactly how I wanted to start the track on “Sympathy for the Devil.” I knew exactly how to start  “Angie.” I wanted to start with that 8-bar piano intro before I got to the signature riff of that record.

You started playing trumpet in the 4^th grade You then grew up playing guitar in bands, and orchestras, and then you were in garage bands all through high school. So that’s your background in stripping down the arrangements for these Rolling Stones songs. Then you lived with them for a while in order to seamlessly cut across country and rock while respecting music that is practically the soundtrack to your school years.

I can tell.

My wife Anya had an advance of the album and she wanted me to hear it on a Friday night. I said, “I don’t want to hear anyone from Nashville covering the Stones. Don’t do this to me, please.”

(Laughter).

I started off with “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” with Arkansas two-time CMA recipient Ashley McBryde who became an Opry member in December. Hearing the track,  I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. But I can’t really see Brooks & Dunn doing  ‘Honky Tonk Women.’ Well, whoa, it really works, and I hear hearing Ronnie Milsap’s take that influenced you, and away I went through the entire album.

Afterward, I thought, “Someone very creative, someone very sharp, and someone who is a big music fan put this together.”

Well, thank you so much. That’s what I did. The arrangements came from me. I would live with the song, think about our approach to it, and how I could make each song a tribute to them (the Rolling Stones) but make it our own, and make it perfect for that artist.

The most challenging task of the album was crossing country and rock while tracks had to still fit under the country umbrella. 

It had to be country. I wanted to make a real honest-to-goodness country record. I wanted to make sure that three cuts into the album the listener would be going, “Oh my goodness, this is a real unapologetically country album.” This is why I wanted everybody in the room together. I would get a circle, and I’d say, “This is what we are doing. Here is what I am seeing, and here is the breakdown of the arrangements.”

So I would write these songs down and arrange them.

But I was then able to let them bring their incredible musical expertise because the greatest musicians in the world are here in Nashville.

For example, I told (pedal steel guitarist) Paul Franklin, “Paul you are just as important on ‘Wild Horses’ as Little Big Town. The tone from the first downbeat needs to be you. We need to hear that from you. The moaning and the wailing of this, we need to set this up as a country record.” All of those great musicians have ownership over this album, and ownership over what they are playing.

Upfront, I’d almost certainly consider “Dead Flowers” and “Wild Horse” being country. I’d know I could shape “Angie” to be country. But the other songs, I wouldn’t be too confident about their foundations to support as country.

Before the sessions did you have songs picked out? 

Yeah, I did. That was the daunting task at the beginning of the process. How do you take all of this great music that they did? And, of course, some stood out. That we knew we were going to do. That already had country overtones to them. I figured out the 14 songs that I wanted to do, and most of the time I would hear the song, and I’d also hear that artist singing that song. Almost 95% of the record when I called the artist to be on the album, I  had the song. So when I made the invite to have Eric Church be part of the record, it came with, “I want you to do ‘Gimme Shelter.’”

The Rolling Stones have been so important to Eric Church. He has said that when he was nobody, and just playing guitar in front of 10 people, he got more tips when he played ‘Honky Tonk Women.”

There was only a couple that I left open-ended. One was the Zac Brown Band.

Only because musically, they can do anything.

They can do anything. I felt maybe there’s an obscure album cut that Zac might want to do. I called him, and I said, “Zac we need to figure out what it is you are going to do on the Stones’ record before you leave town because these songs are getting snapped up.” He said, “Let me think about it, and I will call you tomorrow.” He called back five minutes later, and he said, “I want to do ‘Paint It Black.’” As soon as he said it, I was like, “Oh my goodness. Oh goodness gracious.”

You and Lainey Wilson went back and forth on four or five songs, and then had a false start, first recording “Get Off Of My Cloud” before switching to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Right. That’s exactly right. Lainey and I got together and started talking about Stones’ songs because she’s so much fun. She mentioned “Get Off of My Cloud,” and you know what? It’s good. She sounds great, the band sounds great with what we wanted to do. But I had about 11 or 12 of the songs done, and I started to figure out the sequencing of the album. Every time I got through the sequencing, I couldn‘t figure out a place to put that song. The reason why I couldn’t find a place was that I couldn’t make it country enough.

It’s interesting about that that whole (1964-65) era of “Get Off of My Cloud,” and “Time is On Your Side,” I realized that is the era that I needed to let that be what it is. I felt that trying to make any of those songs country was going to be trying too hard.

When I called Clarence Spalding, I said, “Hey man, I think you are right. Elvie Shane would be great for this record. He is the Stones. He’s the spirit of the Stones. I love his music. Let’s do it.” Clarence said, “Well, he wants to do ‘Sympathy for the Devil.” And I was like, “Great.”

But for the rest of the record, when I called and asked them to be part of the project, it came with, “This is the song that I want you to do.”

Joining the Country Music Association board in 1996, and serving 9 years (1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006), put you among the grownups in country.

Founded in 1958, the Country Music Association (CMA) is the premier trade association of the country music industry. Representing professionals making a living in country music globally, the organization is dedicated to expanding country music around the world through a number of core programs and its three annual television properties—“The CMA Awards,” “CMA Fest” and “CMA Country Christmas.”

Eventually, you were made the chairman of the TV broadcast committee from 2001 until 2004.

You are right. When I got on the board I was among some of the greatest people that had ever worked in this town. Connie Bradley, Kitty Moon Joe Galante, Donna Hilly, Bruce Allen, Larry Fitzgerald, and Merle Kilgore were on the board. All of these people who I would call the titans of our industry. People that I looked up to. I knew what their place was. I knew how they could contribute. The question I had to figure out was how do I contribute? And it came into clear vision rapidly fast in that we had had Fanfair at the original Nashville Fairgrounds, and it was at a place where we either had to grow it, or we had to get rid of it. The board decided to grow it and moved it over to the stadium, and changed the name (in 2004) to the CMA Music Festival.

The CMA renamed the event to the CMA Music Festival in order to change negative perceptions, embrace the CMA brand, and expand its appeal.

You pitched to make the CMA Music Festival into an annual television broadcast, and Fitzgerald Hartley Company co-founder Larry Fitzgerald argued that you should produce the “CMA Music Festival” TV show, and the other CMA board members agreed. The “CMA Music Festival” was your first network show. So you started producing the festival, and then you signed on as executive director of the “CMA Awards” in 2007. You went on to create the annual “CMA Country Christmas” show in 2010.

But part of that first change was that it addressed my contribution to the CMA. And that was trying to get the CMA Music Festival to sell as a network television broadcast. So I went down there the second year with a camera and shot a five-minute sizzle (reel) of what the Festival is. You can’t describe what it is. You can only feel it or see it. Then (attorney) Joel Katz, Charlie Anderson (then chairman of the CMA Board), Ed Benson (then CMA executive director), and I played the sizzle reel to CBS, and they brought it. I didn’t know at the time that was going to be my entry into producing television. I wasn’t doing that for that reason. I was doing it because I was trying to find a place to contribute. It was later on that the board decided that I should be the producer as well which changed my life. But that was never my intention. My intention was, “Man, I’m on here with Joe Galante, Merle Kilgore,  Bruce Allen, Donna Hilly and Connie Bradley. I know what they contribute but what can I contribute? That was my mindset and that’s how the “CMA Music Festival” was born as a television show.

The 2021 edition of The Country Music Festival did not take place due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

To mark the 50th anniversary of The Country Music Festival, it returns to downtown Nashville June 8-11, 2023, and features hundreds of artists performing across multiple stages, and there are nightly concerts at Nissan Stadium with Jason Aldean, Jimmie Allen, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Jordan Davis, HARDY, Tyler Hubbard, Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Ashley McBryde, Tim McGraw, Old Dominion, Jon Pardi, Carly Pearce, Keith Urban, and Lainey Wilson. Also, there is Fan Fair X inside Music City Center.

Along the way, you produced “Sports Illustrated: 50 Years of Beautiful” on NBC, as well as the “Soul to Soul Las Vegas” residency for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. You were executive producer of “The Passion” for Fox Broadcasting, and you now serve as executive producer of the Billboard Music Awards on NBC.

After a couple of years working at Ridder Broadcasting’s ABC affiliate WKRN-TV 2, in the news and then marketing department, shooting all their promos and doing marketing, you and George Flanigen launched Deaton Flanigen Productions which did lots of commercials and marketing promos for syndicated TV shows, and an estimated 500 music videos for such artists as Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Alabama, and Diamond Rio. You two made their feature film directorial debut in 2018 with “Benched.”

George and I don’t have a business anymore, but he’s still my brother. We shuttered that company over 10 years ago, but our names will always be together. It will always be. He’s my brother.  We still work together. He worked a lot with me on the CMA stuff and, of course, George is one of the producers of the Grammys (2019). He is still my brother, and I love him to death.

With Deaton Flanigen Productions, you won two CMA Video of the Year awards. One for “Independence Day” with Martina McBride,  and one for “Believe” with Brooks & Dunn.

Our mutual friend songwriters Gretchen Peters largely credits the video of “Independence Day” for the song’s success, It’s a chilling video. What a freaking video. Still tears me up.

Thank you.

You worked with my close friend Bruce Allen with Martina who he was managing.

I sure did. How’s Bruce doing? Bruce is the best. Talk about another character, but he will make you laugh. He is hilarious. I love Bruce Allen. He’s still managing (Michael) Bublé, right? And didn’t he manage Anne Murray?

Yes.

I tried to get Anne for one of the CMA Awards. It might have been the 50^th, but I heard she’s not doing anything anymore.

The 50th CMA Awards, held on November 2, 2016, at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville honored country music’s rich history, and included a big handful of heritage country artists.

From what I understand its rehearsal was the worst rehearsal of all time, leaving you praying, “Please, Lord, let us get through this.” You never finished the opening segment with Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood as hosts, along with Roy Clark, Charley Pride, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakam, and Charlie Daniels from beginning to end during rehearsals.

You were balancing a lot.

I was. The thing that was the most daunting for me was that opening. As you know how I grew up. I grew up with these great artists. I got to meet Buck Owens. I got to sit with Jerry Lee Lewis when I was little. And Charley Pride. It was so important for me to get this right. It wasn’t just about doing a TV show. We were representing the last 50 years of country music.

And the last 50 years of your own life. You tell the story of being at the Opry one night right before Charlie Daniels passed away in 2020 at the age of 83. He was on last, and you were going to leave but didn’t. You will always have that memory of him just tearing up “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

It is true.

The award-winning “Forever Country” 50th Anniversary music video has garnered more than 18 million views.

During rehearsal, it was a train wreck for the opening. A lot of these artists hadn’t been on TV for a long time. Roy Clark, and Charley Pride. Then we had Dwight Yoakam, and Alabama. It was a huge opening. We never could get through the whole thing. I was like, “Oh my goodness, I have really bit off more than I can chew this time.” I remember walking onstage with my head down, thinking, “What in the world are we going to do?” And I hear a voice, and it’s Vince Gill saying, “Looked better on paper, didn’t it?” I looked up, and he is laughing, and he says, “Robert, It’s going to be alright. We’ll get it all together.”

You never did get through the entire opening in rehearsal.

The only time we ever finished it from beginning to end was live on air. We got through the entire thing, and we were announcing the opening monologue, and I burst out crying. I just sat there and sobbed at the producer’s table because this is what my whole professional career was leading up to was this moment, and it was incredibly difficult, but it ended up being beautiful. I was like, “I did it. I did it exactly how I wanted to do it. I honored these people, and I honored these people the way that I wanted to honor them.”

At that precise moment, you may have wondered how your mentors, Irving Waugh, (who served as executive producer of the CMA Awards), and longtime Grammy director Walter Miller would have done it.

(Laughing) That is true. You know what? I do that all of the time, and still to this day I will ask “What would Walter Miller do?” Here’s the thing about Walter. If there was a Mount Rushmore for live television Walter Miller would be on it. Robert taught me everything that I know about doing live TV. Even that it is professional to end on time. To go over 30 or 40 minutes, I’m like, “That’s not what Walter taught me. You go off on time.”

Without Walter, without his blessing, there’s no way I would be doing what I am doing today. There’s no way. I owe him. Walter Miller changed my life, and I owe him for it.

I only met Irving a couple of times. I don’t know if he’s in the Country Music Hall of Fame, but he should be.

Irving Waugh knew country music backwards and forwards, and from the beginning. He’d started at WSM radio in the 1940’s, and eventually transitioned to the CMA where he was instrumental in bringing country music to television. Waugh was the executive producer of the CMA Awards until 1993, and there is a special CMA Award named after him specifically, even though he’s not in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

To wrestle, as you did, Alan Jackson,  Dierks Bentley, Jon Pardi, Carrie Underwood, and Lainey Wilson together for a surprise performance at the 56th Annual CMA Awards on Nov. 9, 2022, you deserve a wrangler award just for that.

Is that an organizing skill that you learned from your early days in Nashville working at WKRN-TV 2?

I think I learned that my whole life. Loving the music bandits was always about putting on a show. I always wanted to put on a show. Everything that I love is all related to music, television and movies. I’ve got my 100,000 hours in as you do.

Well, I’m older than you. I’m 75. You are 51. I’m not a kid. But I have adrenaline.

Well, when was the last interview that you did that somebody brought up the “Pop Goes The Country” TV show? I love having YouTube these days because I can think of any artist, and go back and see them perform. I can pull up Tammy Wynette. I love being able to go back and look at all of those shows. And I learn something all of the time. Even if I go back, and I watch the Johnny Cash summer replacement show, I learn something about how they accomplished their television. Where they put their cameras. What kind of lensing did they use? What kind of lighting did they use? You can learn something from all of that. It is what I love doing. I’m blessed because I am working with the artists that I love.

“The Johnny Cash Show” began as a summer replacement for ABC’s “Hollywood Palace” in June of 1969. It did so well that it was given a primetime slot the following January.

A country TV series from the ‘80s barely mentioned today is the Sid and Marty Krofft-produced music-variety series, “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” which was filmed at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood. The show played off the success of Barbara Mandrell’s fast-exploding country career and also featured her younger sisters, Louise and Irelene.

Among its guests were Dolly Parton, Larry Gatlin, Charley Pride, Paul Anka, Bob Hope, the Statler Brothers, Marty Robbins, Alabama, Ricky Skaggs, and Steve Wariner.)

People thought that show ran for years but it only ran for two years (on NBC Nov. 1980 and June 1982) with an audience of millions each week.

Despite its strong ratings, the only reason it went off the air was because star Barbara Mandrell was suffering from exhaustion.

I became very close to Barbara. She would send me a card after the CMA Awards. She would write out what she loved in a very professional way. It was obviously coming from somebody who knew television. I so appreciated those notes from her.

You mentioning Connie Bradley, Kitty Moon, and Donna Hilly earlier underscores the fact that country has long been an industry with incredible woman. I am thinking of the late Jo Walker-Meador, executive director of the Country Music Association from 1962 to 1991, and the late Frances Preston, the Chief executive officer of Broadcast Music, Inc. from 1986 to 2004.

Absolutely. I am so glad you mention it. I am still glad today the women that we have working in our industry. Starting with Frances Preston, Connie Bradley, Kitty Moon, and Jo Walker-Meador who was just the most awesome person. But it continues today. We have Sarah Trahern, CEO of the Country Music Association, and Kerri Edwards who manages Luke Bryan. There’s Martha Earls who manages Kane Brown; and Cindy Mabe who is CEO and chair of the Universal Music Group Nashville (the first woman to hold this title at a major Nashville-based label.)

It’s on and on and on.

The women who make up this industry are the brightest, the most talented of anybody working anywhere. You are touching on a really important thing for me because I was raised by strong women, and I love that about our industry. I think that country music has always led when it comes to that.

A TV special on women with strong country or Nashville ties would be intriguing. Today, there are the women that you mentioned, and also there’s Heather Vassar (VP of marketing, Nashville, EMPIRE), Stacy Blythe (Big Loud Records, senior VP of promotion), Leslie Fram  (SVP of music strategy at CMT), and Katie McCartney (GM, Monument Records) among the women in the country sector representing fields including labels and distribution, management, business management, publishing, live events, branding, rights, and industry associations.

That’s a great idea. I will write that idea up. I agree with you. Here’s the thing. There’s no possible way that I would be talking with you today without Kitty Moon and Connie Bradley. They are the ones that got me on the CMA board. They were the ones that were my champion. Without those women, you and I aren’t having this conversation I don’t think because I wouldn’t have had the career that I have. I owe my career to these women. I am so very glad that you brought that up.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Robert Deaton, TV, Film, & Recording Producer appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

One of the most prodigally talented musicians in American history, John McEuen was a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band for a half-century before departing at the end of its 50th-anniversary tour in 2017, the same year he was inducted into the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame.

During his extraordinarily restless and fruitful life, multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, piano, dulcimer) McEuen who is currently living in Franklin, Tennessee, has at last count performed over 10,000 live shows and completed over 300 television shows— with the Dirt Band, solo and with others–as well as produced a handful of formidable film documentaries.

While the Dirt Band’s catalog bursts with stellar music, their landmark 1972 album, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” was the one that cemented their reputation as performers who pushed musical boundaries.

Skillfully executed, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” contains some of the frankest, most appealing, and least guarded performances in recording history.

In reading McEuen’s lavish 225-page new book “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: The Making of a Landmark Album” is to be whisked back in time to August 1971 when a group of musicians, amid the sticky late-summer Tennessee heat, spent six days circled together in the old Woodland Studios building on a corner street in East Nashville, where they merged genres, and generations, recording bluegrass and old-timey country tracks.

McEuen’s book is chock-full of photos taken by his brother William E. “Bill” McEuen who produced the Dirt Band and the album, and the book shares behind-the-scenes stories of the sessions, capturing the players in conversation, with additional reminisces by McEuen and with members of the Dirt Band, as well as Gary Scruggs, Marty Stuart, and numerous contributors.

Those long-haired California boys paired with bluegrass and country legends of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, such as Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs, his sons Randy and Gary, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin, Bashful Brother Oswald, Roy Huskey, Norman Blake, and Vassar Clements, resulted in a 38-song triple recording that constituted the first such integral collection of its kind, and is regarded as a milestone in American music.

There are young people in the music business, not to mention America at large, who have hardly heard of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” and who cannot know what it represented to American music at the time of its release.

It not only turned heads within the music industry, particularly in staid Nashville but, along with then countrified releases by Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Ian & Sylvia, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson, it laid the foundation of Americana music that evolved as a recognized source of popular culture.

The future Renaissance man of American music was born in Oakland, California, and moved to Orange County outside of Los Angeles with his family during his high school years.

He began playing the banjo at age 17, after hearing live bluegrass at a club near his home.

Growing up in California in the ‘50s and ‘60s meant that great American bluegrass and blues musicians were only evidenced on records and radio, making it hard to catch a glimpse of the artists behind the sound. But McEuen had a proficiency for picking notes off records, and he quickly found success with the banjo in the Los Angeles area, winning Southern California’s annual Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival.

His performances with the Dirt Band over five decades before he stepped off the bus in 2017 — he previously took a hiatus from 1986-2001 but had been performing full-time with them since his return — are universally considered to be of the highest quality.

As Garth Brooks recalled in 2014, “I went to see Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in college at Gallagher Arena (at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma). A bunch of guys in the dorm pooled our monies together and threw in an extra buck a piece to pay one of the guys to sleep out for tickets. We got front row. We were having the time of our lives when during a fiddle solo, John McEuen leaped over the monitors and past the edge of the stage and landed in between John Mathiason and me. McEuen never missed a lick of that solo. THAT MOMENT is forever etched in my soul.”

With his mastery of multiple instruments, and retaining his ties with Nashville and his Los Angles friends, McEuen became a sought-after sideman as he steadily grew as an interpreter, and as a technician.

He brought depth and richness far more than a supporting player to performances by such luminaries as Steve Martin, Michael Martin Murphey, the Allman Brothers, Phish and others.

Since leaving the Dirt Band, McEuen has hardly curtailed his activities. Far from slowing down as age encroaches—he’s now 77—he seems to be to accelerating by playing with the Circle Band, his ensemble of string-players including former Dirt Band co-founder Les Thompson.

In concert McKuen proudly plays a Deering John McEuen Signature Model banjo with its unique 24 Karat gold look, trimmed in ivoroid, and coral snake decorative edge inlaid purfling, accented with premium engraving on the tone ring, armrest, and tailpiece.

To witness a John McEuen performance is to be struck by the notion that he’s one of the finest entertainers you’ve ever heard. Someone who has touched a generation of listeners and, perhaps more than anything else, as shown with the timelessness of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” that this music still holds up in wondrous ways.

And, believe him, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” will live forever.

Much of your life was chronicled in your 2018 book “The Life I’ve Picked.” That said,  you really need to sit down with a documentary film unit and drill down on the era you have lived and worked in, as we keep losing so many unique voices of our music culture.

Well, I am in five museums. The Western Edge Exhibit: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock at the Country Music Hall of Fame is a real good deal. It will be up for three years, and it honors the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as part of the L.A. country-rock thing. There are a couple of 8×12 foot photos of the Dirt Band on several of the walls and an exhibit. It has other people like Herb Pedersen who was greatly influential, and there is some of the work of Chris Hillman. He is the reason I got a band. I was going to college and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” came on the radio. It was the greatest thing that I had ever heard. I pulled over and waited for it to come on again. I didn’t go to school that day. I knew that Chris Hillman had been in the San Diego-based bluegrass group, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers (with Bernie Leadon), and he was playing bass in the Byrds. I said to myself, “If he can do it, anyone can.”

Have you really released 46 albums, including 7 solo recordings?

A couple of them might be compilations. A “best of” package or something. With the Dirt Band, it’s 35 or 36 albums, and then I’ve done 9 or 10 of my own. By my own, I mean albums that I have produced, played on, or didn’t play on, but produced. Like Steve Martin’s album (“The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo”). I produced that and played on it. We won a Grammy (in 2010 for Best Bluegrass Album).

Originally released in November 1972, as a three-LP set, and three-cassette tapes, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was remastered and re-released in 2002 as a two-CD set. The original album was certified platinum by the RIAA in 1997, indicating shipments of 500,000 copies.

While none of the celebrated country-oriented albums by people like Bob Dylan or the Byrds made a significant dent in the country music world, the “Circle” album went to #4 on the Billboard Country Album chart.

Popularity brought honors far beyond the usual.

Rolling Stone called the “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” recording, “The most important record to come out of Nashville” and the album was named by Country Music Television (CMT) as one of the 40 most important albums in country music. The recording was inducted as a historic recording into the Library of Congress in 2004, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.

“Will The Circle Be Unbroken” still sells heavily as a catalog release.

That is so cool.

When Nitty Gritty Dirt Band co-founder Jeff Hanna was asked to write on “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” for your book “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: The Making of a Landmark Album,” he wrote that, “It seemed a daunting task.”

He’s right.

The recording represents a confluence of two eras of country music history that directly inspired the Americana roots music genre.

It isn’t just that the album is now 50 years old, and was the ultimate picking session of the Dirt Band members with their bluegrass heroes, but it’s also part of a lot of people’s DNA, a culturally conscious recording that has taken on a life of it own

The only album that affects me in the same way is “Music from Big Pink,” the 1968 debut studio album by the Band.

Yeah, it is very interesting with this book that I wrote. I had to talk to people, and get some impressions, and it‘s like “Chicken Soup for the Soul” (1993) with “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.” This album affected people more than just a record, and that is quite an honor. I am really glad that it works.

Both “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” and “Music from Big Pink” appealed to rock audiences who came to country music via the Byrds, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, the Dillards, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Marty Robbins, Linda Ronstadt, and Jerry Jeff Walker, only to discover Ray Acuff, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs Bill Monroe, the Country Gentlemen, J. D. Crowe’s New South, Tony Rice, David Grisman, David Bromberg, John Hartford, and Ricky Skaggs who each benefited from the musical match-up and went on to tour to new audiences as traditionalism appealed to urban folk music fans in the 1960s.

While bluegrass, pushed aside by more modern country music and by rock and roll, was hard to find on commercial radio, it spread at a grassroots level.

And joining labels like 4 Star, Goldband, Rebel, Columbia, Vanguard, Folkways, Arhoolie, Okeh, Bluebird, and RCA in releasing traditional country music, and bluegrass in the ‘70s were Flying Fish Records, Rounder Records, Takoma Records, and Sugar Hill Records.

As Brett Milano wrote in Udiscovermusic (August 1, 2022) “The worlds of country and rock music were coming together by the early 70s. The Byrds had done ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’; Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash had recorded together; Linda Ronstadt’s solo career was underway; the Grateful Dead had done Merle Haggard and Marty Robbins songs; and Willie Nelson was off inventing outlaw country. Yet bluegrass wasn’t really part of the equation – that was a previous generation’s sound. The young folks may have had some Doc Watson and Roy Acuff records in their collections, but few were covering those songs, and nobody was daring to invite those legends into the studio.”

“Will The Circle Be Unbroken” was originally released by United Artist Records.

Catalog number UA 9801.

In 1969, United Artists Records merged with co-owned Liberty Records and its subsidiary, Imperial Records. In 1971, Liberty/UA Records dropped the Liberty name in favor of United Artists.

That deal was made at 6920 Sunset Boulevard in 1971 in ‘the Liberty building,  directly across from Hollywood High. My brother Bill and I met with Mike Stewart, the president of the label. We celebrated across the street at IHOP.  I had French toast.

What budget did Mike Stewart give you?

He put up $22,000 for the album.

Were you able to do it for that budget?

We did, and one of the reasons was that two-track really worked out. If it had been 16-track, a reel of 16-track tape then was $180.00, and we would have used about 30 of them, and that would have depleted our budget. But two-track tape was only about $35.00.

Mike Stewart, while an L.A. company man, deserves credit for running the most distinguished show in town. He went on to serve as VP of United Artists Pictures for more than a decade. He supervised the film soundtracks of “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Rocky,” and various James Bond film scores. After United Artists Pictures, he joined with the West German firm Bertelsmann to form the Interworld Music Group, and was later the president of CBS Music Publishing.

He also served as a consultant to the MCA Music Division. He was a big guy in music publishing. Big, well-known guy. I called him when I was remastering “Circle” for the CD, and he said, “John, I have three albums on my wall in my office that I helped make happen. I made 500 albums happen, but I’ve got three. I’ve got John Lennon’s first album, ‘Imagine,’ and I’ve got Tina Turner’s first album, ‘Tina Turns the Country On!,’ and I’ve got the ‘Circle’ album.”

That was really a wonderful testament to the fact that he put up the money.  But he had also said, “I don’t think I will sell 10 of these.” But my brother Bill and I did the pitch for the album to him, and he said, “You guys are so passionate about this, that I’ve got to listen.” We (the Dirt Band) had just had three hit singles. That gave us somewhat of an edge.

The Dirt Band broke through with its 4th album, “Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy,” which reached #66 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1970. Three singles charted: “Mr. Bonjangles” reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. “House at Pooh Corner” reached #53 and “Some Of Shelly’s Blues” reached #64.

With this breakthrough success, the Dirt Band was allowed to record a three-album set at a time few acts were allowed to. That came later with Yes with “Yessongs” (1973), Neil Young’s “Decade” (1977), Stevie Wonder’s “Looking Back – Anthology” (1977), the Band’s “The Last Waltz” (1978), Rush’s “Archives” (1978), and the Clash’s “Sandinista!” (1980).

The Dirt Band was initially signed by Liberty Records which was the same label as the Chipmunks, Julie London, Eddie Cochran, Jackie DeShannon, Vikki Carr, Jan and Dean, Johnny Burnette, Gene McDaniels, Del Shannon, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and home to producer Snuff Garrett’s easy listening album series, “The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett.”

The Chipmunks made Liberty Records. Chipmunk Alvin was named after Al Bennett who was president of the label at the time.

Singer/songwriter Ross Bagdasarian, aka David Seville, had a #1 hit on the Billboard Top 100 with his novelty song “Witch Doctor” in 1958, selling 1.4 million units in the United States, and saving Liberty Records from near-bankruptcy.

The Chipmunks, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore were named after Liberty Records executives Alvin Bennett, Simon Waronker, and Theodore Keep, beginning with “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, selling 4.5 million copies.

Did you know Lenny Warnoker when he worked at Liberty in the A&R and promotion departments, first as a gofer and then at its publishing affiliate Metric Music? Before Mo Ostin scooped him up to be a junior A&R executive for Reprise and Warner. In 1970, Lenny became head of A&R, and then president in 1982.

We ran into him when he was with Warner Bros. My brother Bill worked with Lenny and Mo Ostin. He took Steve Martin to them, and another group. The other group didn’t work out, but Steve did. Bill managed Steve and produced his first 5 movies. He first made a record deal with Liberty Records with Artie Mogull, and then a couple of weeks later, he gave the money back because he got the deal at Warner Bros.

Who holds the masters to the original “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” album?

Well, I have them in the next room. I stole the masters from the company in 1976 when they put out an album that used some of the tracks for a compilation record. Let’s say I took the masters. I didn’t give them back. When I was remastering, the lady at the company in charge of production making the records, she closed the door to her office, and said, “John, why do you have those masters?” I said, “Betsy can you give me the artwork for this album.” She replied, “Well no. We lost it.” And I said, “I think you just answered why I still have these masters. I’m not going to lose them.” She then said, “Well okay. You send me the finished CD.” Anyway, they don’t need the masters. They have it digitally now. It sounds better than the original because the processes are better.

Why didn’t you write and publish “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: The Making of a Landmark Album” 20 years ago?

It would have been 20 years early. The 50^th year came. It would have been the year 30. In the year 30 (2002) I reissued the album (as a two-CD set). I had the masters in my possession, and I remastered them for the CD and put four new cuts—two talking cuts, and two music cuts—on it.

The airing of Ken Burns’ 8-part, 16-hour PBS documentary series “Country Music” in 2019 increased attention on the album.  You were featured in four episodes including one titled “Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1968-1972)” which you closed.

So the Dirt Band was recognized as an important part of history.

It gave the album a shot in the arm. Ever since the Ken Burns’ show, the “Circle” album has been in the Top 20 or 30 of three different Amazon charts. That’s been for three years now. It became obvious that I was going to have to do this 50^th-year book, and in the middle of doing the book, my brother died (on Sept. 24, 2020). I wish he had lived to see the finished thing. He would have loved it, I think.

The text and the photos in “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: The Making of a Landmark Album,” stir up so many memories for me. The original album plays in my head as I go through the book.

That’s good. I wanted to answer all of the questions that I could that I have been asked over the years and add in some stories that I never got time to tell, and then talk a bit of how the record was made. And I tell a bit about how the cover was made. The meticulous effort that my brother put in to making that magic cover that the record company did not want to make. “Well, I will erase the tape then.”

Other than the musical quality of the sessions, one of the major strengths of the “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” album is its sequencing. I understand that Bill worked on that in Aspen, Colorado for five months after the recording sessions.

Yes, and to start off a three-record set with a mistake took a lot of nerve. (The lead-off track) “Grand Ole Opry Song” starts off “dat dun don.” Jimmy Martin said, “Earl (Scruggs) never did do that.” Yeah, I know. It really caught people off guard.

The effect of the informality was that it is like listening to a late-night picking session among friends.

That’s one of the things that I wanted to accomplish with my brother when we put the “Circle” album together. It wasn’t called the “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” album. That came up when Bill was editing and sequencing it, and it became obvious that was going to be the title. That’s the song.

Bill took photographs during the early years of the Dirt Band and photographed their recording sessions. Putting together the “Circle” book with 145 photos by Bill, 30 photos from the early Dirt Band leading up to the “Circle” album, must have been an emotional experience for you with him passing away in 2020.

It was a difficult process. I quit working on it for a few months because….anyway. Then I went, “Well I have to finish it. The 50^th year is coming up. And there’s a story behind every photograph, including the early Dirt Band photographs that he took. They are in there. They are interesting.

Nevertheless, these wonderful photographs provide vivid recollections of both the original sessions in Nashville, and of so many people who have since passed on including:  Doc Watson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Vasser Clements, Roy Acuff, Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin, Roy Huskey, Bashful Brother Oswald, as well as Earl, Randy, Gary, and Louise Scruggs.

Of course, the album was so tied to Bill.

I was tied to Bill too.

I was working on the book, and he gave me the pictures, 10 years earlier. He said, “Here, these are yours.” He gave me the pictures, and I have used them in my stage show. Where I do a video projection of all of the “Circle” album pictures, and some of the early Dirt Band.

Your shows with the Circle Band that include guitarist Les Thompson, a co-founder of band, feature Bill’s photos behind you on the screen as you play in front of it.

Yes. I also have some of the early Dirt Band on 8mm film, and video.

I spend 20 minutes on the early Dirt Band story leading up to “Circle” album, and then use all of the photos that I can to tell the story of the “Circle” album. People have just been loving it. It is a special kind of show. It is usually and hour and 40 minutes long. Not all of it is with video, but a lot of it is.

What reactions have you had?

I hear from people, “It definitely took me back. I have the original album. I bought it,” they say, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 years ago.”

Nothing beats playing a great show and talking backstage with band members saying, “Well, that was hot.”

Well, the sound is better today. The lights are better. The venues are better in general. Well, 90% of the time anyway. And it’s fun to go and play.

Mostly you have a pre-won audience after decades playing everywhere. Those coming to see you almost certainly know your history, and they know what they are going to likely get, and even what the quality will be.

And they bring the other half of the audience that I play to. Half the people that go to a concert, I believe, don’t know what the act is. They are going to see someone and were brought by the other half. “If you go and see Barry Manilow with me, I will go and see the Grateful Dead Reunion with you.” That kind of thing happens a lot. Except for major names it’s, “We haven’t heard the music.” It’s a fun, exciting challenge to go out in front of an audience, and make them laugh, make them clap, and have them stand up at the end and not leave. That’s my challenge.

When you were 19, you and your brother Bill were delivering diesel products for your father’s business in Nashville. After going to four places to drop stuff, you tried to get tickets to see Earl Scruggs perform at the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, but the show was sold out.

I had always wanted to meet two artists. Mother Maybelle Carter, and Earl Scruggs. Bill and I traveled to Nashville in the hope of seeing them both perform.

On the west side of the Ryman, people would line up to peek through the windows which were open. When it was your turn, Earl Scruggs was introducing Mother Maybelle Carter. You and Bill watched her, Earl Scruggs, and Lester Flatt perform “ Wildwood Flower” which the Carter Family had first recorded in 1928.

Maybelle and Earl lived up to your expectations?

I almost passed out. They did “Wildwood Flower,” and they followed with some quick banjo instrumental, and the place just went nuts. It was a magic moment. And I just said, “Someday, I hope to meet that guy.”

It came to pass that you did indeed meet Earl Scruggs. How did that come about?

The Dirt Band was playing its first Nashville job in late Fall of 1970. And  (Earl’s son) Gary Scruggs heard that we were coming to town, and he played his dad our album “Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy” which had an Earl Scruggs song on it, “Randy Lynn Rag,” and (the hit song) “Mr. Bojangles.” And it had Michael Nesmith’s “Some of Shelly’s Blues” (recorded by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys in 1968) which started with a banjo.

Another song on the album was “Clinch Mountain Backstep” (penned by Ralph Stanley). I didn’t know that Doc Watson was from the Clinch Mountains. We knew very little about Doc Watson, Maybelle Carter, or the Stanley Brothers, you didn’t know who the musicians were. There weren’t credits on the albums.

Perhaps more than any other tunes on “Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy,” the Dirt Band’s versions of the Stanley Brothers’ “Clinch Mountain Backstep” and “Randy Lynn Rag” may have established their right to be in the same studio with bluegrass legends. “Randy Lynn Rag” is from Flatt & Scruggs’ 1957 Columbia Records album “Foggy Mountain Jamboree.”

When Gary played Earl, “Randy Lynn Rag,” he said, “I want to meet that boy.” And me being a banjo player, and being that boy, I was really pleased. When I asked Earl a couple of months later when he came to see us play Vanderbilt University, “Earl why did you come to see this band? I really appreciate it.” He said, “I wanted to meet the boy who plays ‘Randy Lynn Rag’ the way I intended it.” And that just blew me away.

You approached Earl about recording with the Dirt Band at the old Tulagi tavern and performing venue in Boulder, Colorado. You knew Earl was going to be playing Tulagi so you went, and I asked him if he would record with the band for what would become “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.”

And Earl said yes.

Yes, I met Earl first, and then 6 months later at Tulagi, I asked him if he would record with us. We had become phone friends.

You had a similar telephone conversation with Doc Watson from Tulagi a couple of weeks later.

I hadn’t met Doc yet. His son Merle introduced us that night, and I told him we were making an album with Earl Scruggs and wanted him to pick with us. He lit up with that comment, and I put him on the phone with my brother Bill, in L.A.

Chuck Morris, who was managing Tulagi’s then, provided a phone which in ‘those days’ was not easy, as he had to get about 75 feet of cord for a phone from his office downstairs. Bill knew a lot about ‘old music’ and got along fine with Doc. We were on the way.

After graduating from high school at 16, Chuck Morris earned a college degree in political science from Queen’s College (The City University of New York). Then he moved to Boulder to pursue a doctorate in political science at the University of Colorado. However, at 20, he dropped out of the PhD program, and was soon managing and booking bands at The Sink, a local club owned by Herbie Kauvar.

Morris then operated Tulagi for 2 1/2 years, hiring such notables as the Doobie Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, ZZ Top, and others early in their careers.

Boulder was becoming a real musical center in the early ‘70e. People like Joe Walsh, Stephen Stills, and Chris Hillman moved there  and (producer) James William Guercio opened the Caribou Ranch studio in 1972 near Nederland, Colorado, some 17 miles west of Boulder.

Eight weeks later you started recording. Six days later everything was done.

A full 40 songs were recorded.

Recording took place at Glenn Snoddy’s Woodland Studio in East Nashville which was not on Music Row. But that didn’t matter. Country artists came to Woodland because its sound was so good. By 1971, Snoddy was using tape recorders with one, two, four, eight, and 16 tracks before he upgraded a few years later to two 24-track Studer recorders.

For the “Circle” album tape ran continuously throughout the entire week-long recording sessions, including capturing the dialogue between the players. Many of the tracks—including the lead-off—begin with the musicians discussing how to perform the song.

While there were a couple of songs that were recorded two times, most of them were first takes — “no fixes, no overdubs.”

It was a good studio. It had good equipment. The engineer Dino Lappas, which my brother brought from L.A., had worked on a lot of albums from the Jazz Crusaders to the Ventures to the Dillards, and Tut Taylor and Glen Campbell albums for World Pacific. Dino was a magic ingredient to things sounding right. Get the right mics on the right instruments. And it was a wonderful thing.

Dino Lappas had a 25-year career in the recording industry as a director of recording, and chief engineer for United Artists Records, and Capitol Records in Los Angeles. He was a first-call recording engineer for live performances and did studio sessions with the likes of Don McLean, Paul Anka, Electric Light Orchestra, and War. He did the soundtracks for numerous James Bond films, the “Fiddler on the Roof” film, and the music for the original “Rocky” film. After his tenure in the recording industry, he spent 25 years as co-owner with his brother-in-law, Peter Tripodes, of Gus’s Barbecue in South Pasadena, California.

In reading your book I learned that the late Tut Taylor, a musician’s musician who played banjo, mandolin, and dobro—and who had played with the Dixie Gentlemen, and in John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain band, bowed out of the “Circle” sessions.

It didn’t work out, and we were fortunate in that because of Norman Blake, I think he filled the shoes better.

Norman also was a member of Aero-Plain with John Hartford, Tut Taylor, as well as with fiddler Vassar Clements, and guitarist Randy Scruggs, who both played on the “Circle” album.

Merle Travis, a guitar stylist of monumental influence, tricked you and Bill into believing that he was over the hill when he first played “Cannonball Rag” in rehearsals.

Oh, he was messing it up on purpose. “I want to do the ‘Cannon Ball Rag,” and he stumbled through a version of it, and we were all standing there sweating. We were at his house to rehearse for the day. Anyway, he just looked up at one point, and said, “No, I will do it like this,” and he played it perfect. Then we went in and recorded it a week later.

A unique stylist, Merle Travis had the instrumental style “Travis picking” named after him. Two years after the “Circle” sessions Merle recorded with Chet Atkins for the 1974 album “Atkins-Travis Traveling Show” which won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance.

I interviewed Doc Watson when (his son) Merle was still alive. Of course, he was known for his fingerstyle and flatpicking skills. Doc’s earliest musical influences were country roots musicians, and groups such as the Carter Family, and Jimmie Rodgers. He told me he first played in rock and roll bands.

Well, he had to make money. He couldn’t make money playing that mountain music out there. Here’s a guy that I was told was related to Tom Dooley—aka Tom Dula (whose name in the local dialect was pronounced “Dooley”) who supposedly killed Laura Foster in 1866, in North Carolina for giving him syphilis– but he couldn’t find an audience to sing about him. But he had to find work. He wasn’t yet the Doc Watson, although he was the Doc Watson. He was just a band member, and he made it (music) to survive.

In the 1860s, when the Tom Dooley story takes place, Doc Watson’s great-grandparents were neighbors of Tom Dulas’ family, and his grandparents, knew Tom’s parents. A local poet Thomas Land wrote a song about the tragedy, titled “Tom Dooley,” shortly after Dula was hanged. Grannie Lottie Watson sang the ballad in much the same version that Doc later sang it. The version of “Tom Dooley” popularized by The Kingston Trio in 1958 was based on a version sung by Frank Proffitt who lived down the road from Doc Watson.

Growing up, how did you and Bill find out about these bluegrass greats? You rarely heard bluegrass on the radio other than the Grand Ole Opry radio show or on country music shows on local television in southern California such as “Town Hall Party,” “The Spade Cooley Show.” and “Cal’s Corral.”

Or did you see these bluegrass greats when they ventured out to California?

Maybelle Carter’s music was featured on the Flatt & Scruggs album “Sons of The Famous Carter Family” recorded in 1963.  She played on one cut, and that made me introduce myself to her songs, and to her musicians. Then I found one of her albums from the Carter Family on Folkways or Smithsonian. Then Bill and I played clubs around Southern California well before the Dirt Band. About one-third of our music was Jimmy Martin music.

One of the all-time great bluegrass singers on the “Circle” album, Jimmy Martin was Bill Monroe’s lead singer in the Bluegrass Boys in the early 50s.  He later tinkered with the traditional bluegrass sound on his solo recordings to make them sound fuller.

Oh yeah, it was “You Don’t Know My Mind and “Guitar Picking President,” All kinds of cool songs. Jimmy Martin had them all.

As the self-proclaimed “King of Bluegrass,” and the man who created hits like “Sophronie,” “Hit Parade of Love,” and “Widow Maker,” Jimmy was never invited to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry because his reputation for wildness scared off Opry executives who were afraid of what he might do or what he might say.

That reminds me that when we did “I Saw The Light” Jimmy Martin came up to me and said, “I’m going to sing this so much like Roy Acuff, you won’t be able to tell us apart.” He did it, and I can’t tell them apart. He just really sounds like him.

I first became aware of bluegrass and blues history with Jim Rooney’s remarkable 1971 book, “Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters.” One half of the book, front to back, was about Bill Monroe, who helped lay the foundation of country music as the universally recognized father of bluegrass; the other half, back to front, was about Muddy Waters, the greatest contemporary exponent of the influential Mississippi Delta blues style, who played a key role in the development of electric blues.

Jim Rooney served as director and talent coordinator for the Newport Folk Festival in the ‘60s, and managed Bearsville Sound Studio in Woodstock, New York in the ‘70s. After moving to Nashville, Rooney released a series of solo albums and produced the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Hal Ketchum, Bonnie Raitt, and others. In recognition for his contribution to Americana music, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Americana Music Association in 2009.

Well, Muddy Waters, and Bill Monroe. It’s real music that is made by real people, and it was just incredible. My brother was listening to blues, Memphis Slim, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Slim Harpo, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and he also was listening to Hank Williams. He liked to sing like Hank Williams and do the blues. At the age of 16 or 17 years old, I got his guitar, and played with him for six months, learning what he showed me. That was kind of not fun. Then I saw the Dillards in an Orange County club, and the Dillards just woke me up, and I just had to get a banjo, and I started playing banjo 8 and 10 hours a day

About a quarter century after you first saw the Dillards perform, as a director, you vividly captured them with a splendid video documentary “The Dillards – A Night In the Ozarks,” released in 2006. The original Dillards — guitarist Rodney Dillard, his banjo-playing brother Doug, mandolinist Dean Webb, and bassist Mitch Jayne are seen playing originals and standards on porches and in living rooms of a Salem, Missouri farmhouse in the late ’80s.

The Dillards were so influential to a generation of young players. Among the first bluegrass groups to have electrified their instruments in the mid-1960s, they were pretty advanced progressive bluegrass for the time.

The Dillards were a driving force in modernizing and popularizing the sound of bluegrass in the 1960s and ‘70s, and they are credited with helping set the stage for the “country rock” movement and the burgeoning progressive sounds of bluegrass. Their first three albums include original songs that have become bluegrass standards like “The Old Home Place,” “Dooley,” “Doug’s Tune,” “Banjo in the Holler” and “There is a Time.”

Brothers Doug and Rodney played members of a family band, the Darlings, making 6 appearances on “The Andy Griffith Show” between 1963 and 1966. Joined by their jug-playing patriarch Briscoe Darling (actor Denver Pyle) and sister, Charlene (actress Maggie Peterson), the Darlings introduced bluegrass to many Americans.

Well, I had to do that. I put it together because I wouldn’t be talking to you if it hadn’t been for Rodney, and Doug Dillard. Rodney is a lifetime friend. They believed in me. They took a chance. I was away from the Dirt Band at the time, and I called up Mike Denecke and asked him if he would do sound.

It’s interesting reading in your book that Roy Acuff wasn’t sure he wanted to play on the first “Circle” album. And there he is in the control room listening to the music. After it was done, he said, “That’s country music. Let’s go make some more.”

I met Roy and was around him for a week at the Grand Ole Opry in the late ‘70s. I often saw Roy backstage that week, and he looked like a real old man. He shuffled around. Yet, when he went onstage, he was like a spring chicken of 25. He just came alive. I’ve never seen a transformation quite like that.

Yeah, I noticed that with Roy Acuff, and with Porter Wagoner too. Same thing. One time Porter was coming off stage at the Opry, and I said, “Hey Porter how you doing?” He said, “Oh, I’m a little bit worn out. It’s been a long day. What did you want John?” I had gotten to know him. I said, “My in-laws are here, and they were hoping to get a picture with you, but I won’t bother you with it.” He was like, “Oh, where are they? Get them to come over and get a picture.” He perked up, and looked like he was just fresh out of something. “Okay good, you got it?” We got the picture, and he was like, “I gotta go change my clothes now.”

“Will The Circle Be Unbroken” was Mother Maybelle Carter’s first gold record. 

Yes, I gave it to her. I took it to her house. Marty Stuart went with me. I didn’t know where she lived, and he did. “Maybelle, this record I want to give it to you because you are part of the reason that it is a gold record. Thank you for being with us.” She replied, “Well, I’ll be. I never had one of these.” If she stayed alive, she would have received a platinum record. But that was quite an honor to give that to her. And then she stood it against the wall, and she said, “Would you boys like some lemonade?”I said, “Well, Maybelle Carter if you are going to fix me lemonade, then I am going to drink it.” You know that she called us, “Them dirty boys.”

I am surprised that Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash didn’t sneak into the first “Circle” album sessions. To hear Johnny’s dedication of “Tears in the Holsten River” to his mother-in-law Maybelle Carter, and her sister Sara on the third “Circle” volume, released in 2002, is to have the Carter Family made real.

Well, they were on the road. It was in August, and we didn’t know them yet. But I’ll tell you if you want to get to know somebody, make a great album with their mother-in-law or their mother. Johnny Cash, when I met him he said, “Let me thank you boys for doing that for Maybelle. That was wonderful.”

He was all over the “Circle” album. In fact, when we did “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Volume 3” (2002), he called the studio, and we were all there, and he said, “I would like to be part of this record. Would you be my band?” Having Johnny Cash ask would you be his band was really exciting.

At the peak of their country career, the Dirt Band toured Europe with Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, who hinted that they’d love to appear on a sequel to “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” if the band ever decided to make one. That gesture convinced the band to get back in the studio to record two follow-up all-star “Circle” albums.

Bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe, who perfected his music in the late 1940’s and stubbornly maintained it, refused to be on the original  “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.” However, he eventually told you he’d like to be invited.

Bill Monroe wasn’t on any of the “Circle” recordings. When I asked him first, he just didn’t know. Bill Monroe didn’t know any music but Bill Monroe music. He didn’t listen to the radio. He didn’t listen to what he called rock and roll. “It ain’t part of nothing.” We were on the record charts with “Mr. Bojangles” (inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010), “Shelley’s Blues” and “House of Pooh Corner” so he knew we were on the charts with the Doors, the Beatles, and Nashville Brass, and whatever. He thought we’d put a snare drum and horns and electric guitar all over his music. And Bill came up to me at a festival a few years later, and he said, “Hey John, if you ever do another of those ‘Circle” albums give me a call.”

Vasser Clements told me so many Bill Monroe stories. Like Bill leaving players in small towns because they were late getting on the band bus.

If you ever needed a fiddle player who could do it all, you had to get Vassar. Someone who could play jazz like Stéphane Grappelli and could also play bluegrass and old-timey country music.

You played shows with Earl, Gary and Randy Scruggs, Josh Graves, and Vasser.

That was a good group, The Earl Scruggs Revue. I played with Vasser so many times. I hired him to work with me 25 times over the years after the “Circle” album, and it was wonderful. One night I asked him, “Vasser, how do you play ‘Uncle Pen?” And he played it, and I said, “That sounds like that Bill Monroe record.” And he said, “John that was me. I was 17 years old.”

I have over 25 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band albums in my collection, and I think four compilations. I still have a vinyl copy of the first self-named album released in 1967. I remember the single “Buy for Me the Rain” co-written by a pair of rising California songwriters, Steve Noonan, and Greg Copeland. There’s pair of Jackson Browne-penned songs, “Melissa” and “Holding.”

“Buy for Me the Rain” has been used forever as the main theme for the long-running agriculture and agribusiness magazine TV program “Market To Market,” produced by Iowa PBS.

Not many groups that I am 20 albums deep with.

I’m on all those so I appreciate all that. I was there for 50 years, and at the end of the 50^th year tour, I stepped off the bus, and I said, “Have fun. I gotta do my own shows.” We weren’t doing enough “Circle” music. One or two songs and I wasn’t driving the train. It was a democratic group. And I just got outvoted. “Hey, why don’t we do……” and I’d mention a song, and we might work on it, and try it once. We just never did, really.

You must concede that the band shifted direction several times over the years as it changed members, and jumped labels to Warner Bros., MCA, Capitol Nashville, Warner Nashville, and DreamWorks with indie label sojourns on DualTone, and Sugarhill.

While the band continued to record old-time country music, both on their own and with Alison Krauss and others in the ‘80s, recordings like “An American Dream” with Linda Ronstadt, and “Make a Little Magic,” with Nicolette Larson, as well as their more mainstream country songs, “Long Hard Road (Sharecropper’s Dream),” “Baby’s Got a Hold on Me,” and particularily, “Fishin’ in the Dark,” went a long way in redefining the band’s identity.

That was the string of 20 country hits, and that was the first record I was not on. About a year and a half after I left, I was really glad to hear “Fishin’ in the Dark”  because it was like your old alma mater had won the game. I had people asking me, “Hey, now that you aren’t in the Dirt Band, what are they going to do?” I said, “Look, the group is resilient. They will come up with something. Just hang out for a bit.” And they did come up with something again and again, and I was really proud of them.

“Fishin’ in the Dark” reached #1 on the U.S. and Canadian country charts. It was co-written by my friend Jim Photoglo. A former pop artist with two charting albums in the ‘80s, Jim has been a highly successful Nashville songwriter for decadesand was one of a member of the short-lived novelty country band Run C&W.

Jim has been playing bass with the band now (since 2016), and he and Wendy Waldman with Fishin’ in the Dark” wrote a fine song for the Dirt Band/

Your brother Bill produced Steve Martin’s novelty hit “King Tut” with backup by the Toot Uncommons. I remember it first being performed on “Saturday Night Live.”

Well, that was the Dirt Band. My brother was managing Steve at the time.

“King Tut” was released as a single in 1978, sold over a million copies, and reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was also included on Martin’s 1978 album “A Wild and Crazy Guy” which won the Grammy Award in 1979 for Best Comedy Album. Bill also produced Steven Wright’s album “I Have a Pony.”

In 2015, “A Wild and Crazy Guy.” was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

It was Bill and your fate to be far more than routinely successful.

Bill’s fast-burning energies, his versatility, and his profuse gifts for music, photography, and film coalesced to make him a high-profile figure in numerous fields, among them music production, films, and television.

Through the Aspen Film Society, the production company he co-founded with Steve Martin in 1976, Bill was a producer or executive producer for numerous films, most notably as the producer for “The Jerk” (1979), “The Man with Two Brains (1983), and “The Big Picture” (1989), and executive producer for  “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985).

As the younger brother, you have scored 13 film projects, including Steve Martin’s NBC television specials as well as the score for the 10-hour epic Warner Bros. television mini-series “The Wild West,” the Emmy-nominated documentary that chronicles the Old American West from 1866 to 1896.

As project producer, you were awarded the coveted Western Heritage Award that honors individuals who have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works.

What was in your family DNA that led to you two mastering all of this creative work?

I guess I was bored. There’s nothing in the DNA.

Your parents were probably less than enthusiastic when Bill and then you channeled your energies into music, and film.

My father told my brother when he started going up to Hollywood to learn the record business, “Why do you want to know those people?”

What did your parents do for a living?

My mother was a mother. A housewife. My father ran a diesel equipment business, a surplus business. He’d buy stuff from government auctions, Navy and Army and whatever equipment. Jimmy 6-71 engines, and 4-71 engines.  6-71 means 6 cylinders in a 71 series.

The classic Detroit Diesel two-stroke 6-71 design, tuned for commercial duty, produced 165 horsepower and sounded like it was revving twice as fast as it really was, resulting in its nickname the “Screaming Jimmy.”

He’d buy bearings. He’d buy generators. He had a 110,000-square-foot warehouse in Long Beach, and he made a living in a business that ended up dying out. He was an interesting character.

You became part of the L.A. music scene at an interesting time as America’s music industry transitioned away from New York to the City of Angels.

The result was the music business rebounded from there with new locally based labels. including A&M, Elektra, Dunhill, Straight, joining Reprise Dot, Keen, Del-Fi, Modern/Crown, Specialty, and United Artists.

Groups like the Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, the Rising Sons, (with Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder, and David Lindley), the Doors, Love, Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, the Mamas & the Papas, and the Mothers of Invention. played such local clubs as The Troubadour, Whiskey A Go-Go, The Ash Grove, Pandora’s Box, Gazzarri’s, The Trip, Ciro’s, London Fog, The Balladeer, The Fifth Estate, and The Golden Bear in nearby Huntington Beach.

In your book “The Life I’ve Picked,” you wrote about your early days working at Disneyland Park in Anaheim when you were 16.

I worked in Fantasyland at Merlin’s Magic Shop about 1/10th of the three years, the rest being at Main Street Magic shop in between the Wurlitzer store and the old cinema that would show 6 silent films. Both shops were under license to a firm called Taylor & Hume.

Merlin’s Magic Shop faced the center courtyard in Fantasyland, adjacent to the Sleeping Beauty Castle. This small building has been home to many different themed shops over the years, including Mickey’s Christmas Chalet, the Castle Heraldry Shoppe, Briar Rose’s Cottage, the Villain’s Lair, and Castle Holiday Shoppe, and currently Merlin’s Marvelous Miscellany at Disneyland.

Steve Martin also worked at Merlin’s Magic Shop in Fantasyland.

Steve did, and it was the time of our lives. What a great gig for a 16 or 17-year-old 18-year-old. It was a time when groups were being booked there. There was a hootenanny night, and there was acoustic music. There were the Mad Mountain Ramblers, and the Pine Valley Boys played in Frontierland.

Steve and I would take our breaks at the same time. I would take longer-than-I-should-have breaks to catch David Lindley playing hot banjo with his cool group, the Mad Mountain Ramblers, and later, the Dry City Scat Band. You know, David always stood on his toes for solos.

You did eventually play Disneyland with the Dirt Band.

It was years later that we got a gig at Disneyland for a night.

(In the summer of ’61, David Lindley had formed the Mad Mountain Ramblers with schoolmates from La Salle High School, a private, Roman Catholic college preparatory high school in Pasadena.)

David, (multi-instrumentalist) Chris Darrow, and (violinist) Richard Greene were all in the Mad Mountain Ramblers. Chris ended up in the Dirt Band for a few years (contributing to the studio album “Rare Junk,” and the live album “Alive!,” recorded before the band went on hiatus in late 1968), and Richard went on to be a great musician (with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, the Blues Project, and Sea Train.) He was always a great musician.

David was totally five-string banjo in those days.

David was an early inspiration to me. He was also in the Rising Sons, and he went off to be a founding member of the even stranger Kaleidoscope band which released four albums on Epic Records, and then he worked with Jackson Browne a few years later and did that for 20 years.

David Lindley passed away on March 3^rd, 2022, in Pomona, California where he had been in hospice care for a short period. His death was announced on his website. The announcement did not cite a cause, although he was said to have been battling double pneumonia, and acute vasculitis. He was 78.

I will never forget seeing David in 1966, a year after Disneyland when he was a judge at Southern California’s Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival. That really put pressure on one of the entrants: Me. After the contest, which I won, I took a lesson from him to learn the left-hand pull-off trick for “Arkansas Traveller.” Something I would continue to play my whole life.

I saw David once for one of his many times with Jackson Browne. I am sure Jackson is among those that miss David as I do.

Following David Lindley’s death, Jackson Browne posted a remembrance, “David is a very large part of me – who I became, and who I remain.”

Jackson played with David for the first time in a dressing room at the Troubadour in 1969. Jimmy Fadden of the Dirt Band brought David to say hello, and he pointed out that David had his fiddle with him, saying he would probably sit in if Jackson asked him to. Jackson already knew David from the band Kaleidoscope, whose first album, “Side Trips,” was one of his favorite records.

As Jackson recalled, “We started to play my song ‘These Days,’ and my world changed.”

One of your local club hangouts came to be The Ash Grove at 8162 Melrose Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. one of America’s greatest folk and blues clubs of the ‘60s.

Ry Cooder’s first public performance was at The Ash Grove, formally a furniture factory and showroom that opened in 1958, as a guitarist backing Jackie DeShannon in 1963; he was 16. Linda Ronstadt got her start hanging out at The Ash Grove.

I saw David Lindley in Kaleidoscope at The Ash Grove in 1967. It is where I first heard Doc Boggs and his (1964) song “Oh, Death” (previously recorded by the Pace Jubilee Singers in 1927).

Among the performers that played The Ash Grove were country-styled Doc Watson, the Kentucky Colonels, the New Lost City Ramblers; blues giants Mance Lipscomb, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Big Mama Thornton, and Jesse Fuller; and rising contemporary music performers Canned Heat, the Byrds, Bonnie Raitt, the Chamber Brothers, Maria Muldaur, and Spirit.

A fire in 1973 left nothing of The Ash Grove, but the shell of the building, it was remodeled into the Improv in 1974.

The title track of Dave Alvin’s 2004 album “Ashgrove” deftly sets his memories and the club’s history to music.

Nearly 60 years ago, Dick Dale’s rushing guitar lines energized a generation of California musicians. Surfers flocked to the waves along Newport Beach, and Dick Dale and the Del-Tones packed over 3,000 people nightly into the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula.

Were you one of those who came to see Dick Dale double-pick faster and faster, like a locomotive, to re-enact the power of surfing the waves, before the Rendezvous Ballroom burnt down in 1966?

I listened to Dick Dale. I thought he was good. I went to see him one night at the Rendezvous Ballroom. I don’t remember the show. I do remember driving there with a friend who was driving. He drank practically a 12-pack of beer on the way there, and I’d throw the cans out the window.

Then there was simply no one better at sharp, fluid Telecaster licks and twin harmony than Buck Owens in tandem with singer-guitarist Don Rich.

I’m a California guy, and I dug Buck Owens. He was really singing it right. Thanks to Don Rich, he had a lot of hits. Don was the guy that sang that magic harmony with Buck Owens.

You couldn’t tell them apart.

No.

What is the bond or ingredient that has kept the Dirt Band rolling for 56 years? Most bands break apart after a few years as members go off and do other things. The Dirt Band give the impression of having a certain quality; seemingly able to pivot on a dime toward any musical direction they wish to travel.

Well, that is what constant members Jeff Hanna (singer/guitarist) and Jimmie Fadden (drummer) know what to do. They are the two that are still there from the original group.

I go out with Les Thompson, one of the original members. He’s the guy who called me in 1966 and said, “Hey, John why don’t you come and join this group that is getting together at the music store, (at McCabe’s Guitar Shop on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica) I said, “I’ll listen.” I went and listened, played a few songs, and I said, “Okay.” I was 20 years old. Les was 16. and the other guys were 17, 18, and 19. And it worked. We worked, but we didn’t make any money for years.

In the mid-1970s Takoma Records had offices two doors east of McCabe’s and built a recording studio, with audio and video cables going from the sound booth at McCabe’s to the control room of the studio, which allowed easy recording of performances.

We used to hang out there. We used to avoid going to school. (laughs) After I got out of school, I would hitchhike there. Most of it was walking as a matter of fact. My friends became my friends that hung out there, There was a bunch of guys that hung out there, and were interested in playing instruments. They were interested in learning to develop a style and a vocabulary on the instrument of their choice.

Many male musicians join bands to attract girls.

That wasn’t my pursuit. Occasionally, it helped, sure. It wasn’t the reason. I wanted to go onstage and see if I was worth anything. See if I could do anything. See if that practicing that I had been doing for a couple of weeks, see if I could do those licks in front of people. That was the excitement to me.

It has been widely claimed that Jackson Browne had been an early member of the Dirt Band.

They had done five jobs with Jackson Browne, and now Jackson was out. He didn’t want to have them backing up his songs. He wanted to do (his songs) on his own, and they needed another player. Jackson used the band to back him up for some of his songs. He doesn’t mention that in his own bio on his own website. A couple of the Dirt Band guys have been harping on Jackson Browne for 50 years, and “Jackson was in the early Dirt Band” is one thing that irritated me. Well, you know they did five jobs, and he left. He wasn’t in the recording group. He wasn’t in any publicity pictures. Jackson is a fine guy. He sang with me a couple of times, and I appreciated it.

The first paying gig for the Dirt Band was playing The Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, California on April 4^th, 1967, just after releasing their first album two months earlier.

Most importantly Bill had been brought in as the Dirt Band’s manager and was also the band’s producer until 1980.

I convinced my brother to start managing the band, and then I scheduled a rehearsal, “Hey we’ve got to rehearse,” and that was an arduous thing, but we did it. Les (Thompson) was always enthusiastic.

For the first 10 years, I was road managing also. So I didn’t have any time really. I’d be up an hour and a half before anybody, and I’d go to bed an hour later. I was driving to the gigs. “Okay everybody we are leaving at 8 in the morning.”

That was before cell phones. Road managers used to run off the airplane with a bag of quarters to the phone booth to call the hotel and car service and label.

It was exciting but it was tiring. It was exhausting. It was wonderful. It was all of those things.

Along the way the Dirt Band appeared on innumerable TV shows including “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” as well as shows hosted by Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, the Smothers Brothers, and Glen Campbell.

Everything there was to do, the Dirt Band did it.

They not only played with the Doors, but also did a 10-day tour opening for Bill Cosby that ended at Carnegie Hall, and opened for Little Richard in Las Vegas.

Yeah, we did a month with Little Richard at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas Three shows a night. We had what we called the (Dr.) Pepper Hour. We went on at 10, 2, and 4. The four in the morning show was tough.

So, we rehearsed a lot, and then we got the job on “Paint Your Wagon” and that was a four-month vacation up in Oregon shooting that movie.

It took the 1968 film “Paint Your Wagon” to briefly break up the Dirt Band. After three albums with no hits, the band auditioned and landed a job as musical miners in the Paramount picture, “Paint Your Wagon” filmed near Baker City, Oregon.

After four months on the “Paint Your Wagon” set, being frustrated by the long delays in the making of the film, the band decided to split up.

We’d been together a few years, and had done four albums, been in a movie, and that was a pretty good career. It was 1968. It seemed like 5 years had gone by from 1966 to then. “Buy For Me The Rain” was on the first album, and it was a minor hit, and then nothing.

With Its overblown $20 million budget, and nearly three-hour length, “Paint Your Wagon” was quite the horrible film.

Yeah. Horrible film? Some people think that “Paint Your Wagon” is the best film that they have ever seen. And some people think like you.

C’mon Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin doing their own singing.

Yeah, it was pretty funny.

Despite “Paint Your Wagon” being regarded as a box office flop (which it really wasn’t), the soundtrack was a smash success. Orchestrated and arranged by Nelson Riddle, Lee Marvin’s version of “Wand’rin Star” became a #1 single in Ireland and the UK.

Then Jeff and I were at the Golden Bear watching Pogo (that became Poco), play and they were great. We looked at each other and said, “Let’s get the Dirt Band back together,”

Poco has been so overlooked in musical history despite the lineup of guitarists Richie Furay and Jim Messina (former members of Buffalo Springfield) multi-instrumentalist Rusty Young, bassist Randy Meisner, and drummer George Grantham.

So overlooked. Richie Furay was a great singer. Rusty Young was a great steel player, and they had Randy Meisner who ended up in the Eagles. And Jimmy Messina who went on to Loggins and Messina. They were really good. I went and got Les Thompson from next door to The Troubadour where Jimmie Fadden was working.

Jimmie was friends with Linda Ronstadt.

We all were. Linda was hanging out at The Troubadour. It was easy to be Linda’s friend. She’s a wonderful, nice person. She still is, but she can’t sing anymore and she’s living in San Francisco.

It breaks my heart that Linda can no longer sing.

Well, she accepts it. She’s done some concerts where she talks about the past, using footage of film and stuff, and it works really well.

I was at a Linda Ronstadt recording session on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley and it was about 1 A.M. and I’m sitting in the vocal booth with headphones on listening to the playbacks. Linda said, “I have to do a vocal on a song.” I said, “Okay I’ll leave.” She said, “No, give me the headphones. and stay.” So I did and she sang “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” And she’s singing it to me. And I’m going, “Yes I will.” And she just ripped that song apart. It’s the best version in my opinion.

Engineer Mike Denecke continued to do interesting projects with you.

Mike was an amazing friend. He was the engineer on “Mr. Bojangles” when I met him. And he recorded the Dillards. Two microphones to record that whole thing. Live music. He was funny. “Mike, how long will it take you to set up?” He’d answer, “Fifteen minutes.” I’d go up to him 18 minutes later and ask how long he’d be. He’d say, “I was ready three minutes ago.” And he was ready. Mike believed in simplicity. He did a great job.

Mike was our location engineer for the “Miner’s Night Out” video,  and he recorded a live album (in 1999 as John McEuen & the L.A. String Wizard) called “Round Trip” recorded on a NAGRA-D four-channel digital audio recorder with no overdubs. It really sounds good.

Mike went on to invent the Denecke Time Code slate.

The Denecke Time Code slate assigns a unique number to each image or audio frame.

It makes film cameras run at 24 frames per second, a tape recorder that runs at 15 inches per second, and a video camera that runs at 29.9 frames per second. Timecode made it able for all of those machines to lock together, and run at the same time. You didn’t have to use three reels of film anymore. A reel of film would be for the movie sound. A reel of film for sound effects; and a reel of film or music. And they had to run in sync with each other. But Timecode eliminated that.

“Round Trip” was recorded at The Ash Grove and features your son Jonathan on guitar and vocals.

He did that after driving straight from Denver to Santa Monica, and he was on stage an hour after he arrived, and he played well. He amazed me.

For a good part of your career, you were a single parent raising 6 children, 5 of them boys.

Oh man, yeah. My daughter was first. She was the babysitter

You took the kids on the road with you?

Oh yeah, when I got divorced after 18 years, I still had to work. So weekends with dad it would be “Where are we going, dad?” I’d say, “Why don’t we go to Durango and Steamboat? And I would book jobs in ski areas where I’d get jobs with rooms and food and so much money. My kids would ski for free, and they would stay for free. They probably skied 15 ski areas. Then I’d go to other jobs. I would play Branson, Missouri, and the Minneapolis State Fair in St. Paul, and things like that.

There were a lot of fun times on the road.

But it was also a lot of work. I was driving. This wasn’t first-class. I was out of the band. I left in the 90s because I was getting divorced. I think it’s the band’s fault. The first night I separated from my wife, the mother of my 6 children, I went into a grocery store in Colorado at midnight to get something to eat. And “Mr. Bojangles” came on the radio system. So I turned around and left. I couldn’t take it. So that was an interesting head change. That was.

How many grandchildren do you have?

Eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Amazing. My daughter had a daughter, and her three girls are 32, 30, and 29. And the 29-year-old had a kid.

You posted a photo on Facebook of you with your great-grandson Mel looking at your tour schedule with your caption, “See grandpa pick… see granpa fly to West Yarmouth for concert.”

He is a great kid. Loves trucks and airplanes. . . and dinosaurs.

Do you spoil all of the kids?

I do when I see them.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: John McEuen, A Father of Americana Music appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Bruce Hills is a fervent Montrealer who loves his job.

Largely due to the international Just for Laughs powerhouse festival in Montreal, comedians the world over know of the overwhelmingly French-speaking Quebec city.

They both aspire to entertain at the celebrated annual summer event; or at multiple Just For Laughs festivals and comedy events in Toronto, Vancouver, Austin, London, and Sydney, Australia.

Just for Laughs (and its French affiliate Juste Pour Rire) are foundational components of Montreal’s summer experience, and arguably the world’s premier showcase for international comedy, attracting over two million people, having booked thousands upon thousands of comics, pantomimes, and acrobatic acts since its start in 1983 as a two-night event in a single theatre on Montreal’s St-Denis Street.

Among the comedic figures drawn to the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal over the years have been: Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Rowan Atkinson, Tim Allen, Margaret Cho, Ray Romano, Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Burr, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Craig Ferguson, Jim Jefferies, Jimmy Kimmel, John Cleese, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, Drew Carey, Jim Carrey, Mike Birbiglia, John Mulaney, Jason Alexander, Martin Short, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Adam Sandler, Lily Tomlin, Howie Mandel, Bob Newhart, and Jerry Lewis.

Beginning his Just For Laughs career as a driver in 1986, the shrewd, and enormously gifted Hills climbed to the pinnacle of Just For Laughs after holding numerous prominent roles within the organization including as publicist, director of programming, VP of international television, COO, and president since 2018.

Today, Hills oversees all of the company’s English business properties across global markets, focusing on growing the business in all divisions, Including its digital and televised content.

What better time for Just For Laugh than today with comedic entertainers having attained an elevated place in global culture through increased subscription streaming services, and greater access to television, and social media.

With Hills at the helm, Just For Laughs’ global footprint has exploded to over 150 countries with over 1,500 television specials broadcast by key networks around the world.

As well, the company has partnered with Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, and with Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Productions, to name a few.

Hills has received three consecutive Canadian Screen Awards for Best Variety or Entertainment Special for stand-up specials featuring Trevor Noah, PK Subban, and Aisha Brown.

He served as a consulting producer on NBC’s “Bring the Funny,” and as an executive producer on Amazon’s Prime Video 6-episode docuseries, “Inside Jokes.”

In late 2022, Hills was inducted into the inaugural Canada’s Comedy Hall of Fame as a comedy creator for his years of contribution to Just For Laughs.

This induction heralded the honor of Hills representing Just For Laughs when the company was bestowed with a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in the same year.

After being forced to postpone live events and follow up with an online version in 2021, the festival came out like a racehorse in 2022 as it celebrated its’ 40^th anniversary with more than a dozen in-person live stand-up shows in Montreal alone, plus a variety of virtual programs including the Just For Laughs Awards Show.

And now Just For Laughs will take place this year in Montreal, July 14th to 29^th.

Was there a period within the two-year absence of the full-fledged Just For Laughs due to COVID that you worried about its future?

Like everyone, we didn’t know when we would be up and running again. That’s for sure. But the good thing for JFL is that as much as we couldn’t do the live events we could do things online. A big part of our business is recorded content. We have huge catalogs of recorded content. We looked at every new thing that we could make within the restrictions of COVID. We sold a TV series to the CBC which was shot entirely under COVID. We looked at any way we could monetize our audio content and our video content.

It is fortunate that Just For Laughs is not reliant solely on live events.

We have an impressive catalog of material, and we basically had a great opportunity to spend some time really thinking, and planning ways to improve our performance in these areas to help carry us through. We had that luxury, and we were able to get out there monetizing our content around the world during the pandemic at a time when people were watching a lot of it. So luckily, due to the fact that we have a very wide span of businesses, that piece of business helped us enormously. Also with the government, and the different programs that they had in play, we were very grateful for that as well.

It is impressive that Just For Laughs further rebounds in 2023 by launching an ambitious four day March festival in London (March 2-5) at the O2 complex in Greenwich for the first time. It will feature 28 shows, a host of multiple events, panels club nights, podcasts, discussions, a UK incarnation of the New Faces showcase, and the showcasing of top stars from podcasting superstar Adam Buxton to high-energy character comedian Zach Zucker.

All very, very impressive.

We are such fans of British comedy, and British comedians have played such an important role with our festivals in Montreal, and around the world that it was only natural that, if we could figure out the right way to do it, we would do a festival in London. When we connected with AEG and the O2, we saw that we had a lot of common ground, and what came out of that is a festival that we have produced together that is well-founded in British comedy and local acts; from very famous to up-and-coming. Then we sprinkle in what we always do which is a really interesting array of people from all over the world, including Canadian Ryan Reynolds.

What were some of the obstacles in launching such an event at O2 London? After all, London is a big city. There’s plenty of people but it’s often hard to reach them.

The obstacles are really about we don’t need to go unless we have the right plan. So when the right opportunity arose, it was a natural. We never were going to force it because London, New York, and Los Angeles, they are markets that are enormously distractive. People have an incredible number of other things that they can do. It’s hard to get someone’s attention. So if you can’t go in and put up a premium project, there’s no point. So when we had this opportunity with AEG, and the O2, and we talked about what the concept would be, we felt very comfortable we could put up a premium event, and we are very proud of what has been produced.

The O2 connects to Europe. Europeans visit London, and fans fly there for shows. Just For Laughs at the O2 will likely be a big economic driver. It is not just the business that you are doing here. It is the fact that many of the  people coming from outside of the U.K. will be staying in a hotel, probably for a number of nights; and they all will going out to restaurants, and going to other places in London.

Absolutely. So yes we are hoping to draw comedy fans from all over Europe, if possible.

Comedy has somewhat followed film and music into global markets with the advent of TV and other video streaming services rolling out across the world.

At one point, we had British comic stars that were popular in Canada but they weren’t known in America.  For decades few British comics crossed over to America, excepting Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Benny Hill. However, such Brits as Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd, and Billy Connolly were popular in Canada as were shows like “The Goons,” and “The Two Ronnies.”

Also, films in the British comic tradition of music hall and bawdy seaside postcards, featuring Alec Guiness, Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Alastair Sim, James Robertson Justice, and Stanley Holloway were popular in Canada. As were the Ealing film comedies, and Peter Seller’s early UK films. Also widely popular in Canada  were the 31 “Carry On” films released between 1958 and 1992.

Before the enormous international breakthrough of Monty Python, there was “Beyond The Fringe,” and then Peter Cook and Dudley Moore being popular in Canada, and then being on Broadway. Later, there was Alexei Sayle, and Rowan Atkinson being popular in Canada as well.

Absolutely. The British comedy scene had a huge impact on us (Canadians), Larry. Not only did we have a TV show on Channel 4 in England for many, many years, but we could sprinkle in our lineup every summer some of the most original comics in the world. So it broke up what would come at times from the North American comic scene which was a lot of repetition. A lot of comics working in similar styles. Ready for prime time. And then we’d have these crazy wild acts coming from England, just shaking it up like Monty Python did two decades earlier.

There has also been the impact of The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Established in 1947, it is the world’s largest arts and media festival. In 2019. it spanned 25 days and featured more than 3,841 different shows in 322 venues.

Absolutely Larry, but the most important point I want to make about the British comedians is that they were just fresh. They weren’t like the others. They sometimes failed because they were so fresh that our audiences didn’t always relate. But the lucky thing about what happened to us with British comedy was that the Brits did better in Montreal because Canadian comedy audiences always had American, and British influences. They had SNL (”Saturday Night Live”) and Python.

In the ‘50s and early ‘60s, Canada’s CBC-TV would broadcast “Hancock’s Half Hour” and “Hancock” from BBC-TV with such supporting actors as Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Liz Fraser, and John Le Mesurier. The final television series, broadcast in 1961, featured such celebrated episodes as “The Blood Donor,” “The Radio Ham,” and “The Bedsitter.”

There you go. So when you think about that, the chances of connecting with a Montreal audience, if you were a really unique UK comic, were much higher than with an American audience. If they were in some comedy club in New York City, they wouldn’t connect. They wouldn’t connect for two reasons. They wouldn’t connect because some people had issues with the accent, believe it or not. And two, they were just too weird for the average (American) comedy fan.

Our audiences—Canadian audiences—were looking for originality. They were looking for something fresh. They already loved British comedy. So it was a more natural connection. That led to the Brits wanting to come to Montreal to be seen by the industry (at Just For Laughs). To be seen by Canadian comedy fans, hoping that they would be discovered.  Or, at the very least, just having a new experience. They’d be performing in North America, and it would also be a very nice way to break into America because the American comedy industry was in our rooms, and that could lead to many positive things happening with their career in the U.S.  That was what was so great about British comedy.

A lot of British music acts broke out from Montreal including the Police, Pink Floyd, Chris deBurgh, Supertramp, and Gentle Giant.

I just watched that brilliant Apple series (“1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything”) primarily based on music from the 1970s, It was superb.

While a UK-based radio plugger, my wife Anya Wilson broke T. Rex’s “Ride A White Swan” single in 1970. It reached #2 on the UK chart.

I knew a little bit about T. Rex, but to see the full story, and to see what they did, was interesting.

Anya followed English blues icon Long John Baldry to Canada.

Oh wow. I used to see Long John Baldry play at some nightclub on the west island of Montreal. I was such a huge fan, and it was so cool that he had that legendary history. As you know, he wasn’t a huge star, but he had this legendary career, and he was phenomenal live. So it was a chance to see a guy like that in a nightclub which was so much fun.

Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris. It’s Canada’s epicenter of art and culture with more restaurants, cafés, and entertainment events than anywhere in the country. It has the lowest rents of all the major cities in Canada, and there’s an affordable and extensive transit system.

Montreal has something special, and so many of performers on the Just For Laugh stage there talk of their love of Montreal. They are captivated by this city which is renowned for its booming nightlife, its food scene, its European-like appeal, and its enthusiastic audiences.

Of all of the things that they would say. Listen Larry, in the summer I have to tell you, and I say this to anyone who wants to listen, especially on a government level when I am fund-raising of course, Montreal is an asset for me. I can sell Montreal. When I sell Just For Laughs, and it’s in Montreal in the summer, within all of these festivals with beautiful hotels, some of the best foods in the world. Regularly winning top city in North America for foodies. It is beautiful to walk around. It is relatively safe. It’s an asset, man.

Festivals and grand events are the cornerstone of life in Montreal which is also busy each summer with such events as Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Les Franco de Montréal, Festival TransAmériques, St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival, Suoni Per Il Popolo, Festival des Musiciens du monde, International des Feux Loto-Québec, Carifiesta, Festival Fantasia, Osheaga, MUTEK as well as four-day M for Montreal in November.

Quebec, of course, is a bilingual province, culturally distinct from the rest of Canada, with a largely French-speaking population, and while Montreal is a North American city, it’s not like one visiting entertainers have experienced before.

Absolutely, especially for an American who doesn’t travel much. It is sort of France-lite. A lot of comics have said, “It’s Paris without the attitude.”

Comics appearing at Just For Laughs in Montreal, however, must be sensitive to local cultural facts. In 1991, American-born. British stand-up comic and magician Jerry Sadowitz was knocked unconscious onstage by an irate audience member during a performance which mocked French Canadians.

His offense was opening with, “Hello moose-**ckers. I tell you why I hate Canada. Half of you speak French, and the other half let them.” The rarely heard follow-up line, which Sadowitz claims is what actually led to him being attacked was, “Why don’t you speak Indian? You might as well speak the language of the people you stole the country off of in the first place.”

Conversely, the late stand-up comedian/actor John Pinette would go on and on in praising Montreal for several minutes at the start of his sets at Just For Laughs. He talked not only about the city, but spoke a bit in  French, and related local stories.

Numerous comics have done the same.

Absolutely, and John Pinette is really missed. I was with his manager Larry Shapiro recently in Los Angeles. We talked about how much we both missed John. Obviously, Larry and John were so so close. Just For Laughs worked with John on concert tours in Canada, and at our festivals. He was such an important part of our festival history. There’s a documentary coming out next year or so that we are really excited about.

John Pinette died in 2014 in Pittsburgh after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Pinette, who underwent treatment for prescription drug addiction a year earlier, was found dead in his hotel room. He was 50.

One of the more intriguing moments of the early days of Just For Laughs happened in 1987 when English actor, comedian, and writer Rowan Atkinson sought to try out a non-verbal character developed while he was studying for his master’s degree in electrical engineering at The Queen’s College, Oxford. He asked to perform on the French-speaking segment of the festival rather than the English-speaking program.

His act in front of a primarily French audience at the festival was a test platform for his character Mr. Bean—though the character’s name was not decided until after the first TV episode had been produced. Rowan wanted to see how his character’s physical comedy would fare on an international stage with a non-English speaking audience.

Oh yeah. That is a story that goes back to a situation where we were reaching out to book Rowan, and he said he would come to Montreal, but he would love to perform in front of a French audience because he wanted to showcase a character that he was developing a TV show around, and he wanted to show the British broadcaster (ITV) that was going to finance the show that it would have international potential because he’s funny to people. That it would work. I guess that the British network said, “How do we know that the rest of world is going to relate because they don’t know you?”

Basically, they wanted to prove a concept that Rowan could connect to audiences that didn’t know him.

The moment he walked onstage in England or in Montreal at that point, when he was becoming a bit of a live star, they knew it was Rowan, and they were ready to laugh. If he walked out in front of a French audience they didn’t know who he was. And he killed. Absolutely killed. And was able to take that tape (of the show) back, and sell “Mr. Bean” as a show that had huge international potential. Of course, he was right, and that show ended up being a massive hit around the world as you know for many, many years.

The advent of TV and subscription services programming in the past two decades has enabled Just For Laughs to tour more extensively and  be able to successfully establish festival events in London, Sydney, Austin, Toronto, and Vancouver.

The pool from which you can hire talent has changed dramatically in recent years with the proliferation of new subscription streaming services, and greater access to television, and social media, coupled with an abundance of recordings, the growth of various comedy clubs, and social media.

As well, any project you create now, there are so many different outlets available for comedy distribution today. So many different places to sell to now.

When Just For Laughs launched, there wasn’t much going on. It was a much smaller business with just a handful of gatekeepers. The people who could determine whether to let a comedian into the business or not were limited to the bookers of “The Tonight Show, “The David Letterman Show,” “The Merv Griffin Show,” and to a handful of executives at Showtime and HBO.

It was primarily a nightclub business. Very few comedians then could sell out a theatre, and there was very little crossover international business.

Comedians popular in the U.K., with the exception of Monty Python, were virtually unheard of in America.

The strategy of the ‘80s for comics was to play the comedy club circuit, and try to perform on night-time TV or in a TV series. During that decade there was a comedy boom, and as clubs sprouted up throughout North America, acts like Richard Pryor, Jim Carrey, Sam Kinison, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Miller, Sandra Bernhard, and Jerry Seinfeld surfaced.

By the ‘90s, if you were an unknown comic, it was a tough road because other than “Saturday Night Live,”  “SCTV,” “In Living Color,” as well as a handful of spots on cable and nighttime TV, breakout opportunities were limited. Few comedians then considered interacting with emerging new streaming platforms or social media on the internet. 

Today a comic can be a major star based purely on their YouTube and TikTok views. Comics are regularly programmed on such transactional platforms as iTunes, Amazon, Google, PlayStation, and Xbox as well as with such major telco and satellite providers as AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Dish, and Verizon; and with Netflix, HBO, Discovery, BET+, A&E Networks, Disney+, Hulu, MTV2, Viacom, Showtime, and History channels.

Nevertheless, if you are an unknown comic, it is still a tough road.

There aren’t that many opportunities there for the average comic. Netflix has done great things for comedy globally, but it is very selective. Comedians now have careers throughout North America and in international markets. When you and I first started watching comedy, sometimes comics that were household names in America would come to Canada, and not sell tickets because their body of work on HBO wasn’t seen. There was no way to see it. You had to get a VHS tape to watch Richard Pryor, or you listened to his albums.

A comic would tell me that they just did (played) Germany, and they were a huge megastar there, and yet they were still doing 100 seat rooms. Well, Kevin Hart and Dave Chappelle can now do an arena in Germany because the country has English-speaking people, and Germans are pretty astute at being prolific learners of language. There are enough of them that watch these artists on Netflix. and now they can fill an arena for someone who would have a hard time filling a nightclub a few years ago. The business has changed, and the business is significantly bigger in terms of the financial. It is a massive business. It’s a multi-million dollar business.

Just for Laughs programming is now telecast in pretty much every international market, and you present shows and festivals in London, Sydney, and Austin. Not only has its foreign business footprint grown, but its ability to access international markets for crossover talent has dramatically evolved. You have a lot of talent to pick from nowadays.

Yeah, no question. We’ve always scoured the globe for comedy. In the old days, we received PAL VHS tapes from the rest of the world, and then we’d be touring, and scouting extensively around the world. Every year we will cover Canada from one end to the other, and that has happened forever. Thankfully, not by me anymore, but by someone way more in the loop, and who has a passion for that. To go out and really grind it to find the next great voices of Canada which they do so well.

There’s just so much comedy around. Last year there were 137 comedy albums submitted for Grammy consideration.

That’s because people have realized that they can turn their video special into an album.

“The Closer,”  the Netflix stand-up comedy special written and performed by Dave Chappelle won Best Comedy Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 5th, 2023. Directed by Stan Lathan, the video/recording was recorded over 7 sold-out performances at The Fillmore Detroit from August 10-15, 2021. “The Closer” is Chappelle’s 6th and final special under his 2016 deal with Netflix.

Not only get a nomination. if they are so lucky, but also send it to all of the different audio outlets in the world. People are smart in realizing that when they record something for someone that there are many different ways it can be distributed. especially to SirusXM where royalties are pretty significant. For a lot of Canadian comics, that’s a good part of their earnings for the year. So it is quite important.

As the chief programmer for Just For Laughs in 1991, you have spoken of sitting in your apartment one night, sifting through a box full of videos sent by aspiring comics. You were on the verge of falling asleep, but suddenly one tape caught your attention an unknown 19-year-old, Dave Chappelle.  

As you told Montreal Gazette entertainment writer Bill Brownstein in 2015, when Dave performed 7 shows at Théâtre Maisonneuve in Place des Arts, “It was a seven-minute tape and I was blown away. It was brilliant. Then I watched a second seven-minute set he sent me. It was brand new material and it was even stronger than the first. It was just so original and funny and so superior to anything I had seen in a long time. Immediately, I knew Dave Chappelle was not only bookable for the festival, but was destined for greatness.”

In 2015, Bruce Hills was honored by Dave Chappelle as the “Comedy Curator of a Generation” at the Montreal Festival. Two years later Chappelle turned up to present Just For Laughs with the Canadian  Academy Icon Award, at the Canadian Screen Awards in Toronto.

In 2013, festival programming chief Robbie Praw snagged Dave Chappelle to do a single Just For Laughs show at Place des Arts in Montreal. No small task since Chappelle had been largely reclusive for almost a decade, performing only sporadically in the interim.

After a single tweet, the show sold out. Chappelle ended up doing 10 shows.

As it was, Chappelle’s JFL performance helped re-launch him into the comedy stratosphere. He went on to sell out a 10-night stand at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. The New York Times hailed him as one of the greatest comedians of his generation.

There are certain shows that you have work hard to sell, and that you have to push, but If the show is hot, you don‘t need to do anything. The public knows about it. So even a single tweet can be effective.

When we brought Dave back twice to do a smaller theatre, like a 1,600 seat theater, he broke all records. At one point, he sold 10 shows. Yes, they sold out very quickly and yes it could have been a single tweet. I don’t remember. Obviously, Dave is a mega ticket seller, and we were very happy to have him play that role for many years because it was a return to the festival. He has been such an important part of our event since he was 19.

What led to Just For Laughs launching a festival in Austin, Texas?

This is our second year. Austin is a fantastic comedy market. The fans are smart. They are rabid comedy fans. The Moontower Festival was there for years before us. They have great taste, and they are friends. We thought there was an opportunity to make an even better event still in the spirit of what Just For Laughs does, and very importantly Moontower.

Moontower Just For Laughs Austin will run April 12th-23^rd this year. Among the performers scheduled are: Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, Leslie Jones, Samantha Bee, Jenny Slate, Vir Das, Chelcie Lynn, Ben Schwart, Punkie Johnson, Jon Rudnitsky, Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker, Jay Pharoah, Randy Feltface, Matt Rife, Monét X Change, Ziwe, Lisa Ann Walter, Tone Bell,  Ashley Gavin, Dane Baptise, Shalewa Sharpe, Vanessa Gonzalez, Avery Moore, Jay Pharoah, Randy Feltface, Patti Harrison, and Sarah Sherman.

For years “Keep Austin Weird” was the city’s unofficial motto—you saw it on bumper stickers, guitar cases, and VW buses, often alongside another slogan, “Onward Thru the Fog.”

Part of what makes Austin so vibrant are the cool comedy shows at The Velveeta Room. and The Hideout Theatre with younger local comics including Yola Lu, Angelina Nartin, Carlos Morrison, Robyn Reynolds, Lisa Friedrich, Justin Hicks, Chris Hills, Lando Shepard, Elizabeth Spears, Brett Vervoor, Carlton Wilcoxson, Hunter Duncan, Chris Cubas, Vanessa Gonzalez, Avery Moore, and “Funniest Person in Austin” winner Tyler Groce.

Quite a thriving local comedy scene in Austin.

Oh yeah, it’s a great city. As much as music drives Austin, comedy is not far behind. On top of that, Joe Rogan has moved there to do his podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience). He’s also opening up a comedy club.

Podcast host and UFC color commentator Joe Rogan started his entertainment career as a stand-up comedian and still does gigs today. He often hosts comedic guests on the JRE podcast.

He debuted his new Austin podcast studio during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience with comic Tom Segura on April 10, 2021. It’s a significant improvement from his previous studio at his $14.4 million estate. in 2020, he shared a video of a couple of gigantic pythons above the ceiling.

Rogan is planning to launch the Comedy Mothership club at the Ritz Theater in Austin. Asylum Real Estate Holdings, who are linked to Rogan, reportedly bought the venue in late 2021. The business will be managed by Matthew Lichtenberg, but Rogan will likely be the main face and promoter of the club. The historic venue is currently undergoing renovations. There is no timeline for when the venue and comedy club will open.)

Lots of comics from L.A. have moved to Austin in recent times because the scene is so great. Tom Segura moved there, and he is one of the biggest standups in the business.

The 43-year-old Tom Segura has been on the road almost constantly since August 2021 for his “I’m Coming Everywhere Tour”—with  the U.S. and Canadian legs of the tour alone including 250 shows.

This year’s Just for Laughs Vancouver marks the return to a full-scale festival as well as to the February dates that comedy fans have traditionally looked forward to for the popular shows.

Running February 16-25th, Just For Laughs Vancouver (formerly known as JFL Northwest) has an exciting lineup of superstars and up-and-coming comedians.

These include Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Jack Whitehall, Margaret Cho, Pete Holmes, Tim Dillon. Adam Pally, Steve Rannazzisi, Baron Vaughn, Jonathan Van Ness, Bassem Youssef as well as Canadians Sugar Sammy, Steph Tolev, Dave Merheje, Darcy Michael, and Jeremy Baer

In 2015. Just for Laughs united with NorthWest Comedy Festival to present new comedy festival, JFL NorthWest.

For two years earlier, the NorthWest Comedy Festival had made a solid connection to the city by presenting  Craig Ferguson, John Mulaney, Maria Bamford, Hannibal Buress, Natasha Leggero, and Patton Oswalt.

Why the union of the two?

There was a good festival there run by our partner Heather Wallace who came to see us. She thought there was an excellent opportunity for both of us. We had always wanted to be in Vancouver. The Just For Laughs touring shows sell very well in Vancouver. I think that it (the union) offered us an excellent opportunity to increase our footprint across the country. To also have a meaningful place for the west of Canada, to have a JFL home, and to include a lot of that talent. And again to do what we do.

Despite the interruption of COVID, the pairing seem to be working well.

Some of the biggest acts from North America and the rest of the world come to that festival. It has grown a lot, and it’s getting better every year. We are excited about this year’s edition.

With festivals and shows directly connected to the Just For Laughs brand across Canada, you aren’t competing with other comedy headliners in casinos or in local comedy clubs. You come out clean.

Yeah. Listen let’s be quite honest, casinos are competition because they pay a lot of money. They don’t have to worry about the show making full financial sense because it’s a casino.

There are low production costs involved with casino dates for stand-up comics. They turn up with a microphone. We saw Jeff Foxworthy at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ontario a few years ago. He did two shows that night, and I found it hard to believe what he was paid.

I know. Jeff has made a lot of money in his life. He’s also one of the biggest record sellers of all time in the comedy space.

Jeff Foxworthy has reportedly sold over 8,250,000 albums to date. His best-selling album “Games Rednecks Play”(1995)  has sold over 3.1 million copies while “You Might Be A Redneck If….” (1993) has also sold 3.1 million copies.

You grew up in Saint-Lambert, Quebec, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Montreal?

Yes. Saint-Lambert is where I went to CCHS (secondary school). I also spent considerable time in New Zealand. I went to boarding school there for one year. I also spent time in Austin, Texas.

While studying commerce at Concordia University in Montreal. you started chasing local promoter and Club Soda co-owner Rubin Fogel, and Just For Laughs director Andy Nulman for concert tickets.

For sure I was chasing Rubin for tickets, and also when Andy got into the comedy space. I had connected with Andy because he had a name for himself as a writer of a variety of newspapers and such. I was a little rock and roll promoter on my own, and I knew how to sell grassroots, and I knew how to connect with university students.

You tried to barter work with the two of them in exchange for tickets?

What I said to them was “I have a flier for universities that really works for my shows. Why don’t I apply it to your shows? Give me some tickets and, maybe, a bit of money.” And I started off with this little business of grassroots marketing for rock and roll, and comedy because it was effective.

Andy offered you a job at Just For Laugh as a driver. You started working at JFL in 1996 when you were 23.

Andy said to me one day, “You know that Just For Laughs is looking for drivers. They don’t have any other roles. Andy was in his first year. I think he was playing a pretty significant role. He was booking. He was doing marketing. He was basically running the English side (of Just For Laugh). At the end, I left Concordia to accept a full-time job with JFL that I couldn’t pass up.

Prior to joining Just For Laughs, Andy Nulman was a respected music journalist at the weekly Montreal tabloid The Sunday Express for 6 years. He was eventually promoted to entertainment editor and promotion manager there. During that period, he also freelanced for Variety, Us, and Circus in the U.S.

While Just For Laugh’s former president Gilbert Rozan co-founded the festival as a two-night, French-language humor event in Montreal, it was Nulman–joining in 1995–who introduced an English-language component to the festival, and who acted as creator/executive producer of the festival’s TV shows, starting with an hour special on HBO, and Showtime featuring 6 acts.

I was driving comedians around. I was driving Jerry Lewis.

John Candy too?

Not that year but later.

It was the second year when you became the publicist, even though you’d never been a publicist, and  you were taking care of Jerry Lewis and John Candy, but you also drove the producer of “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Yes. Barry Sand.

A former comedy writer and producer of “SCTV Network,” Barry Sand produced “The Late Show With David Letterman” in its first 5 years, from 1982 up until 1987. Je also produced talk shows hosted by Mike Douglas, David Frost, and later Joan Rivers.

Being a driver is often considered a low job in entertainment but it’s a terrific way to meet people who might be helpful with your career.

I say to people all of the time who think that they need to walk into a job at some executive level, that to make a career for themselves, that at the beginning of their career, they can get in the door, “Think of what 30 minutes gives you your from airport to hotel if you are smart.”  Largely what I did was that I would ask them (the passengers) about themselves. Most importantly. What do they need? Where are they going to eat? Most of the time they had no idea what they were walking into. So I helped them with restaurants. I was reliable. I picked them up when I said I would pick them up. I gave them good advice. Barry Sand asked, “What can I do to repay you?” I said, “Nothing.” He said, “Do you want to come to the Letterman show the next time you are in New York?”

Boom, I realized. “Wow. what a great way to build a rolodex.”

As we both know, there are no small parts in entertainment.

Oh, 100%. You just don’t know what you are going to find. I talk to high school and even university students, and I say, “When you can afford to give away your time to get in the door, and work for very little money, especially when a roof is paid over your head, do it. It’s all an investment. It is called momentum. It is called investing in yourself. And sometimes, investing in yourself is about writing a check. It’s just not a large one, or may not be any check because when you are 25, and there’s an opportunity, you may not be able to work for free because you have to pay rent. But if you have an opportunity, do it when you have no better way to get in the door than creating the least amount of difficulty of entry with an employer.

A number of positions you held afterward, like director of programming, also had their advantages. You got to meet, and discover so much new talent, and then book Tim Allen, Margaret Cho. Ray Romano, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, Jimmy Fallon, and Bill Burr, to name but a few.

You got to know them early in their careers.

Then, as VP of international, and chief operating officer (COO) overseeing TV properties, subscription services, you again expanded your career horizons, while establishing Just For Laugh’s footprint globally.

So each of your jobs going up the corporate ladder was beneficial.

Yeah, 100%.

One of the pivotal ways of discovering new talent has been New Faces which has a track record of discovering talented, up-and-coming artists, from Kevin Hart, Mike Birbiglia, and John Mulaney.  to comedian/actress Amy Schumer to internationally-renowned comedian Jo Koy, comedian, actor and Peabody Award winner, Colin Jost, and Canadian Comedy Award winner DeAnne Smith to name a few.

It is all about offering comics exposure to advance their careers. Not just stand-ups but creators. Not just stand-ups in North America. Stand-ups from international. International comics. We also do a program called Characters that’s a chance for people who are sketch performers. We have more people from SNL than any other company coming to see that program because a good amount of SNL cast members from the last decade have come off of New Faces, and Characters.

So being a big part of the discoverability aspect is a big part of our festival in Montreal, especially.is the discoverability aspect. We want people to come, not to find and see famous people, and buy tickets to some of the biggest people in the business, but one of our primary jobs is to offer exposure opportunities for the best young comedy voices of the moment.

What a joy to see one of the promising comedic voices move on with their career, whether it is playing bigger clubs or attaining TV stardom or whatever.

One hundred percent,  Larry. Search YouTube for Kevin Hart talking to Mike Birbiglia about Just For Laughs and New Faces. Mike Birbiglia replaced Kimmel (on Jimmy Kimmel Live!) in the summer for a week, and Kevin Hart was his guest on the third night. They started with, “Where did we meet each other? I think it was at New Faces in Montreal.” Then Kevin Hart went off on a nice description of what JFL’s New Faces is. So that is unbelievable for us.

In this YouTube clip Kevin Hart and  Mike Birbiglia reminisce about their experiences as part of New Faces in 2002, sharing how they credit JFL for propelling the trajectory of their careers.

When Jimmy Fallon congratulated us for having a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame he talked about being in New Faces and the impact that the festival had on his career. He’s done that on his show. He recorded that just for us. When you have fans like Jimmy and Kevin Hart, anytime anywhere, talk about the impact that the festival has had, not only does it bring a lot of pride to us, but it is fantastic for us to have that amazing support because those comics are grateful and we have become an important part of their lives.

Just For Laughs’ co-founder and owner Gilbert Rozon stepped down in Oct. 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and assault spanning three decades. He then unloaded his entire stake in the company afterward. 

I’m not able to go into that area.

I understand but with his departure Québecor/Vidéotron had the right of first refusal to match or top any sale price, but when the group chose not to exercise that right, Just For Laughs was acquired by Canadian comedian Howie Mandel, and ICM Partners.

Bell Media, and Montreal-based event promoter Evenko, then partnered to purchase 51% of the festival from ICM and Howie for an estimated $33 million (Canadian). Evidently, the reason for the sale to Bell and Evanko was largely that majority Quebec interest in Just For Laughs would be retained in order to continue receiving annual government grants.

We have always had Quebec ownership. We have 100% Quebec ownership.

Bell and Evanko both strengthened Just For Laughs as a market leader  and brought about unprecedented financial stability. As well you were immediately promoted to president from being chief operating officer,

We couldn’t be happier with the people who own JFL and couldn’t be more grateful that they came in and bought the company at the time that they did. Nothing but a positive for me.

A time of uncertainty for sure, though, until that transpired.

A time of uncertainty, and they brought credibility. In that situation, it was a very, very important move for the history of the festival.

Do you have much government funding?

We do for our not-for-profit events, yes.

What would those be?

Our Canadian festivals are non-profit events, and they receive some level of support from provincial, municipal, and federal governments.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Just For Laughs President Bruce Hills appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

Our culture lives by its clichés, and the phrase Al Jolson called to the orchestra in “The Jazz Singer” in 1927, “Wait a minute, wait a minute I tell yer, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” is just as appropriate today.

Just ask Jordy Freed.

A recognized and lauded music industry player of marketing, business development, and communications, New York-based Freed creates cultural connections for one of the world’s leading audio/video entities.

As the first U.S.-based employee of Sony’s Brand & Business Development team since 2020, Freed has been quick to lead marketing and business development for a dizzying number of Sony’s cross-functional, multi-million dollar projects.

This includes the launch of 360 Reality Audio, Sony’s immersive music experience, as well as overseeing global branding activations for a number of sound products for consumers and professionals.

Freed developed a global branding campaign with Khalid on Sony’s popular WH-1000XM5 noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones, and with Saucy Santana on the company’s new LinkBuds S truly wireless earbuds.

Freed also was pivotal in 360 Reality Audio being incorporated into a number of high-profile videos, including Lil Nas X’s “Call Me By Your Name” in 2021.

He has overseen 360 Reality Audio marketing and partnerships with such artists as Alicia Keys, Pink, Pharrell Williams, Doja Cat, Kygo, and Kane Brown while also striking a deal to reimagine David Bowie’s catalog in the format to commemorate the Thin White Duke’s 75th Birthday, that also involved New York City and London immersive activation events.

A one-time jazz musician who grew up in an audiophile-immersed household in a Philadelphia suburb, Freed got his start in the music industry while attending Temple University in Philadelphia, working full-time as a jazz publicist for DL Media which lasted nearly five years (2009-2013).

Freed went on to hold marketing and public relation positions at the Blue Note Entertainment Group (2014-2015), where he helped amplify the company’s storied venue and festival properties. He also did a one-year stint (2015-2016) in advertising at the Grey Group, where he oversaw the campaign behind the U.S. National Park Service’s 2016 centennial.

Upon returning to Blue Note Entertainment Group as VP of strategic marketing, public, and business development (from 2016 to 2020), Freed was pivotal in aligning the brand with leading enterprises outside music, including developing partnerships with the Intel Corporation, Pernod Ricard, the European Union Delegation to the United Nations, and NHK Corporation.

Most notably, Freed was a driving force in 2018 behind the partnership of Blue Note Media Group (the sponsorship arm of BNEG) with the Sony Group Corporation for the creation of New York’s Sony Hall.

Freed’s involvement with Sony Hall, and his deep experience and mastering of emerging technology–including VR, Immersive audio, and entertainment/music verticals—ultimately led him to move to Sony Corporation of America in February 2020.

You’ve recently begun an MBA program through the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

It’s online. I have great support to pursue this from Sony. I view this as continuing to help grow our business

Do you feel the need to expand your business chops?

No. I would like to strengthen my perspective further and reframe the way I think about solving business problems. I feel I’ve gotten incredible business experience through different (career) roles in the past. This will take it to another level. Honestly, for me pursuing this, it is more about my re-framing my thinking. Re-framing how I solve problems in a different way. Through my experience in working with various teams and with different sponsors etc., I solve problems through a certain lens, and it can be too comfortable. So I keep pushing. I always like to be a little uncomfortable.

What locations do you work from for your day to day?

It is split between Sony’s NYC office and my Park Slope residence in Brooklyn.

How long have you been a New Yorker?

I have been in New York for 9 years, going on 10 years by end of year.

I am quite fascinated with your background providing a blueprint for your career, starting with your stint as a jazz publicist your various marketing and public relations positions.

But it is really now the changing music industry and media landscapes that continue to drive your career.

Executives and creators have to keep pushing the boundaries of who and what they are and what they do or they are likely to fall behind.

They just can’t say, “This is the way it is.”

It’s likely not the way it is anymore.

I completely subscribe to that. So, if you look at my career, it started with a passion for jazz, and it led to a passion for PR and then to a passion for marketing, and a passion for business development, partnerships, and technology. One fuels the other, and it sort of keeps growing because there is always more to learn and explore. And it’s (growth is) good for the projects I’m working on. It’s good for the company; it’s good for myself; and it’s fun. It’s just fun to expand.

There are people unhappy about the state of the music industry. How bad it is. Certainly, there are issues and challenges, but we now have a global ecosystem to work within with all types of new technology, streaming platforms, and media. Plus there are so many energetic people pushing boundaries, trying to change entertainment. It’s a great time to be a music-affiliated creator or marketer.

It is. There are very few limits. There is just more opportunity than anything else. A lot of the boundaries that may have existed in the past are gone, and it has opened up the floodgates for opportunity. Whether it’s artistic and creative opportunity. Whether it’s commercial opportunity. We are all being directed in a different way, so it’s a really dynamic time for the industry.

And there are now all of these different mediums to work in. Like developing immersive state-of-the-art music experiences.

Well, that’s the thing. When we review our role in the sound category– I’m with Sony Corporation of America, working as an extension with its video and sound business in Tokyo—our primary goal is to extend the musical experience for everyone. Whether it is music creations for artists. Whether it’s consumption for consumers. We want to provide value to elevate music experiences in general. All of these changing landscapes provide a lot of opportunity for us to jump in, and figure out, “Okay, how can we support and really integrate the listening experience to create an experience with the core industry?”

When you consider Sony-affiliated music hardware as being part of one of oldest parts of the company—like SACD, DAT, Walkman, and mini-disc—there’s a lot of history there centered on bringing new ways of hearing music through higher quality hardware while bringing listeners closer to music.

In coming to Sony Corporation of America in 2020, have you discovered opportunities there that you may not previously been aware of?

Every single day I discover new opportunities with partners internally, within the company, and capabilities externally as well too, based on the brand, and our capability.

It is an incredible company.

I love this company.

Obviously, it’s a highly complex company. It is (successful) based on how diverse we are, but that really creates opportunity for unique collaborations that probably would not exist anywhere else,

Why make the move to the Sony Corporation after working on Sony Hall?

This is actually my first go at Sony. When I did Sony Hall, I was at Blue Note Entertainment. I was never a Sony employee, although I was working with Sony’s Tokyo headquarters’ marketing team, and working with its various businesses here in America, including with the Sony sound business for audio. Right before COVID started in 2020, there was an opportunity to join Sony. So I made a strategic decision that, “I am going to continue to grow. I will leave Blue Note, and go work for Sony.” So I joined Sony, maybe a month before the COVID lockdown, working for the video and sound business here.

With Sony-branded partnerships, you have had access to Sony’s immersive music experiences, and sound products such as headphones. and other related sound projects for cross-functional initiatives such as 360 Reality Audio, enabling linkups with relevant heritage and contemporary artists including David Bowie, Lil Nas, Doja Cat, Kygo, Kane Brown, Pink, Pharrell Williams, and Alicia Keys.

An immersive music product 360 Reality Audio uses Sony’s object-based 360 Spatial Sound technologies. Individual sounds can be placed in a 360 spherical sound field as intended by artists and creators. and enjoyed through headphones on compatible music streaming services, Amazon Music HD, Deezer, nugs.net, and TIDAL, that transports the listener, and places them  at the center of an immersive experience.

360 Reality Audio is, in effect, an outgrowth of other surround sound formats. It’s like 5.1 surround sound on steroids for the streaming and the digital world.

I’m really grateful for the collaboration with Sony Music in this area. For example, when you talk about heritage, we are currently working with the Whitney Houston Estate with both RW and WH-1000XM5 headphones for 360 reality audio. A perfect example, right, of pairing heritage (artists) with what we are doing on the product and tech side.

How great is it that Alicia Keys won the Best Immersive Audio Album Grammy for the 360 Reality Audio version of “Alicia” in 2022 as a result of a multi-year collaboration? How cool was that?

Amazing, especially when you think that the collaboration started at the beginning of COVID. It was two years working with Ann Mincieli (the primary engineer who had worked previously with Carole King, Mary J. Blige, and Elton John) and her team to reimagine. They really helped us to foster the technology, and grow it. To work on Alicia’s entire catalog in 360 was pretty amazing. Their approach to how they reimagined some of these classic albums was pretty remarkable.

At the same time, as well as developing releases remixed and reimagined in 360 Reality Audio, you are able to match artists under your roof with these kinds of opportunities as well. Further developing Sony’s history of working with artists on product partnerships, including leading global branding campaigns like with Khalid on the popular WH-1000XM5 noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones, and Saucy Santana on the company’s new LinkBuds S truly wireless earbuds.

Absolutely. You mention Saucy Santana. That is a partnership that we are really proud of. We have a partnership with Khalid on the pWH-1000XM5 noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones. We also have a partnership with SZA on our Linkbuds S (noise-cancelling earbuds).

I saw SZA’s Sony LinkBuds S commercial showcasing the new Earth Blue earbuds. Her “Shirt” single soundtracks the commercial where she’s featured rocking a pair of white LinkBuds S.

This (marketing match-up) is increasing. At the end of the day, there are all these features. To be able to see this in different contexts, even on a smaller scale with other artists, to get a close look at the music, is truly awesome.

With The David Bowie Estate, in conjunction with the ongoing Bowie 75 celebrations, you have overseen activation pop-up events and a series of releases mixed in 360 Reality Audio from David’s sizable catalog.

Longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti crafted 360 Reality Audio mixes of “Heathen,” Reality,” “A Reality Tour (Live),” “The Next Day,” and “Blackstar” that became available for streaming in 360 Reality Audio on January 21st on Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer and Tidal. Additionally, more content has come from DB in 360RA including “Heroes.”

Additionally, the David Bowie Estate and Sony made available for promotion four archival live performance audio/video recordings mixed and reimagined in 360 Reality Audio.

“The fan response to Bowie 75 has been nothing short of amazing,” says Lawrence Peryer, producer of Bowie 75. “David was always on the cutting edge of the latest developments in technology, so it was a natural fit to collaborate with Sony’s 360 Reality Audio team to bring fans a whole new way to experience his music. The reimagining of David’s music, which can be experienced at the pop-ups or via streaming, has given his lifelong fans and new listeners alike a reason to celebrate.”

The Sony/Visconti relationship is pretty amazing for us to work through the David Bowie catalog. Yes, we are partners with the David Bowie Estate on David Bowie 75, celebrating his 75th birthday with the (pop-up) activations in New York and London. We had our 360 Reality Audio listening experiences in both of those locations.

I presume you personally had to do a deep dive into David’s catalog to get a better understanding of what you were dealing with. The catalog is so extensive you wouldn’t have known it well when you started.

That is correct. I discovered a lot of things in his catalog that I was not aware of. It has been amazing. You always think of David Bowie as this kind of cultural pioneer, but when you start to go album by album and go through the years, I have just continually been blown away how evolved as an artist he was through the different phases. It is very, very rare to see an artist go through multiple (career) chapters in the way that he did. And really going through a lot of the catalog on this project has given me an even deeper appreciation.

The Bowie catalog is so rich.

It is.

His innovative spirit continued right up to his final “Blackstar” recording in 2016.

I have a funny David Bowie story for you. Well before I worked for Sony on this project, I also did PR consulting on the side. My client was (American jazz saxophonist) Donnie McCaslin who was in David’s band for “Blackstar.” So I was involved in “Blackstar” associated with Donnie.

A member of jazz fusion group Steps Ahead, McCaslin had played saxophone on David Bowie’s 2014 single “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),” Subsequently, he played saxophone on “Blackstar.” In late 2016, McCaslin released “Beyond Now,” inspired by that experience. The album features the same band that appeared on “Blackstar,” and includes two Bowie covers.

David died on a Sunday. (Jan. 10, 2016).

I remember that day. I started getting phone calls from people wanting to talk to Donnie

We started getting phone calls in the middle of Sunday night from England. Tony Visconti called Monday morning. He was playing in Toronto that week. So, my wife Anya Wilson, who had worked for David in the ‘70s, and he had a very sad reunion of sorts.

Are some legacy artists hesitant about reimagining their past recordings in 360 Reality Audio? Perhaps believing that the original record is the true pure recording? That’s the record they did which has been a best seller in their catalog,  and it’s a historical recording?

It’s a very fair question. We focus on education, and we focus on insuring that whatever output it is that it is the truest artistic representation of what the artist wants or an extension of what the artist wants. What we’ve found is with legacy artists working in this format is that there’s a lot of exploration and that it is a very artistic and creative process. There’s no one size. Every person is different. But I can say honestly that more often than not, that there’s a curiosity to wanting to learn more, and explore the opportunities.

It also would depend on whether the person you are working with has access to their master tapes. As you know label vault masters have been lost or mislabeled or destroyed.

That is very true. Not all material is created equal, unfortunately. So you have situations where there are no stems, and we need to create stems. Depending on how old the content is, sometimes it needs to be transferred. So you do face a lot of different scenarios based on conditions. But I don’t think that there’s been a single project that we’ve looked at where we said, “We can’t do this.”

It’s one thing to reimagine Pink and Pharrell Williams catalogs in 360 Reality Audio than trying to reimagine Billy Joel’s vast catalog which is from assorted sources. His 1971 debut album by Family Productions “Cold Spring Harbor,” for example, was issued at the wrong speed due to an error in the album’s mastering. The tracks played slightly too fast causing Billy’s voice to be one-half of a semitone higher.

Doing Pink and Pharrell Williams in 360 Reality Audio, that’s not going back that far. Their labels or producers would have all of the needed parts, and stems.

That’s true, but it hasn’t stopped us from pursuing older catalog. Sony Music and other labels have put out a number of 360 Reality Audio versions, and they continue to put out catalog content. It comes from all sorts of material sources. It’s a process, and every case is a case-by-case situation. But again, I don’t think that there’s been a single project from our perspective where we haven’t been able to pursue it due to technical issues.

Are today’s producers more vigilant throughout the recording process of retaining stems, and outtakes? Today, working with multiple producers, and working in a number of studios around the world, could lead to disorder. Is there more care being taken to retain what’s available?

It really comes down to the technology. You know this better than anyone that there’s a source of sorts for music. The older material is just physical. It’s challenging, right? To have everything as a digital archive, to live in a Cloud, it is a lot easier. And even with collaborations between creators or among creators, you can share different sources of stems, and content.

The recording technology of today is so much more advanced in that producers, labels, and artists can keep track of what has been recorded. 

Yes. You look at Splice (that adds/removes/edits music or audio), for example. Everything is digital on a salient perspective, on an archival perspective. So yeah, I think that it comes down to the technology because unless you are doing it with the analog, it’s going to live digitally anyway, so there’s a record of it.

Even if it’s analog, there’s a digital version anyway.

Exactly. I think it is just inherent with the technology at this point that thankfully allows kind of a never-ending archive in the Cloud.

Have you been able to get your hands on any classic Miles Davis?

“Kinda Blue” (1959) was released in 360RA at one point.

Yes, in 2021. Scores of differently mastered versions have been cut over the years, but that version is said to beat any copy you’ve ever owned.

That’s the album considered the definitive jazz album. Irving Townsend was the producer, Fred Plaut the engineer for the sessions that took place in March and April 1959, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio. 

But c’mon it’s time for a 360RA version of “Sketches of Spain,” the 1960 album which again pairs Miles with arranger and composer Gil Evans on a program of compositions largely derived from the Spanish folk tradition.

(Laughing) I can’t confirm or deny.

There was the 1997 release of “Sketches of Spain” with three additional tracks. Thankfully, many of Miles’ outtakes were retained. I can recall a time with analog that labels would wipe outtakes once they felt they had the master. 

Thankfully, with digital, you don’t have that issue anymore.

I grew up physically cutting analog audio as well as 8 and 16mm film with a razor. Today there’s digital audio recording, and just about every kid into film production has Final Cut Pro for film editing. With advanced computers and editing suites, there has also been the advent of real-time software, like Notch, to produce video content within the stereoscopic space.

So, who isn’t a creator?

Anyone can be a creator based on the technology at their fingertips. When we (at Sony Corporation) think about our business, and what we do, yes, we work with major label artists, but we are for all the creators at the end of the day. Whether they are a multi-Grammy winner or an aspiring hip hop producer making beats at home. We want to create technology that is accessible for all creators to be able to elevate their art. That honestly is what we are about as a brand.

The last frontier in music is sound. There are music fans who don’t care about sound, and who are happy with earbuds and streaming services, and there are those championing computational audio, including supporting immersive spatial audio or the SMV3 universal decoder which converts stereo and other audio sources into full 4.1 or 5.1 surround sound.

I know so many people today spending big bucks in order to have a more sophisticated home sound system.

Yeah. With technology, sound is becoming more of a premium again. In the past, it meant acquiring certain equipment, and it was a real conscious decision. But with everything on mobile, and with technology expanding to support higher streaming from a cellular perspective, and other integrations associated with headphones, you can argue that it is a lot easier for people to care about and put value on sound.

Following graduation from college, you held marketing and public relations roles at Blue Note Entertainment Group, utilizing marketing for the first time in a job with your traditional PR background–to amplify the company’s storied venue and festival properties.

Challenging traditional publicity and having an interest in delivering increased value for the company, led you to marketing, and, in time, you strategically developed a unique fusion of marketing, business, and communications.

After a one-year stint in advertising at Grey Group, you returned to Blue Note in 2016 as VP of strategic marketing, PR and business development.

Blue Note Entertainment Group has its storied venue and festival properties, and you developed partnerships for the brand with Intel Corporation, Pernod Ricard, the European Union Delegation to the United Nations and NHK Corporation.

(When Israeli-born Danny Bensusan decided to open a small club in Greenwich Village in 1981, it was the era of Studio 54,  and he bought a West Third Street building that housed a disco called Gatsby’s.

With its clubs, cafes, and restaurants. Greenwich Village then seemed to be an ideal place for entertainment in New York City.

When disco faded, Bensusan decided to support jazz though he didn’t know anything about the genre. However, he hired people who did, and he named his 250-seat venue after the classic jazz recording label Blue Note founded in 1939, but at the time lay dormant.

The Blue Note Jazz Club stumbled for three years, operating at about 40% capacity until world-famous bassist Ray Brown recognized the problem.

“Ray walked into this place, and he said, ‘Do you know what your mistake is?” recalls Bensusan.  “You’re bringing the same musicians that play in every other club in New York City, So he’s the one that brought me the Modern Jazz Quartet and brought Oscar Peterson with his original trio. That opened the door to a lot of legends,” including Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan who both loved the room, loved the sound, and appreciated being treated well.

Blue Note Entertainment Group today owns, operates, licenses, or programs Blue Note Jazz Clubs in New York; Tokyo, Japan; Milan, Italy; Waikiki, Hawaii; Beijing and Shanghai, China; Napa, California; and Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Blue Note’s New York City portfolio includes four venues: B.B. King’s Blues Club and Lucille’s Grill;  the Blue Note Jazz Club; the Highline Ballroom; as well as Sony Hall, a joint partnership with the Sony Corporation.

The annual Blue Note Jazz Festival each June, established in 2011, has grown to become the largest jazz festival in New York City.)

It’s great that Blue Note Entertainment Group’s core business is jazz.

It is a really amazing, and it’s an interesting brand. To your point of pushing the boundaries and being the first—when Blue Note opened, it was a very different experience for the consumer. It was one of the first, if not the first, jazz club to treat jazz as more of a premium experience. I can’t speak to whether this is true or not, but I believe it was one of the first to be a street level venue as well. Most clubs then were in basements, and they didn’t have dressing rooms for the artists. They had bathrooms for the artists (as dressing rooms)..

The Blue Note clubs were renowned for offering a more refined experience for the customer, and also for the artist.

There was a lot of aura developed around that brand for star power that would come and play in that environment. So, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, and Sarah Vaughan played there. Artists that would only play concert halls played The Blue Note.

While at Blue Note Entertainment Group, you established brand marketing and business development partnerships well outside of music.

That was one of the key things which I was doing. At least in my second run there.

One of the most successful of these partnerships was with the worldwide distilled beverages company, Pernod Ricard, which was rebranding its Seagram’s Gin in Europe in 2016. Blue Note took over a hotel in Madrid, created a mini club and produced pop-up shows with different artists, which all sold out.

Also in 2016, you worked with the Japanese national broadcasting company NHK to create high-resolution 8K video events broadcast in Japan, including a duo piano show featuring Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea.

Yep. So just from that perspective when you look at it from a brand-building and marketing, and even development opportunities, there’s a lot of strategic advantages and opportunity to build off of that kind of legacy, and distinction to push even beyond. On one hand, you can open more venues; on the other hand, you can align the brand with other companies through partnerships well outside of music with entities like Intel, Pernod Ricard, the European government (the European Union Delegation to the United Nations participating member state countries, (there were more than 10+ that participated in the partnership), and NHK.

Blue Note Entertainment was one of the first to enter the live music space for jazz in Japan, opening a 300-seat club in 1988 in the central Aoyama district of Tokyo as well as in Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka, though they have since closed.

We think of jazz as this very American thing although Columbia and Victor both opened subsidiary companies in Japan in the late ‘20a which issued a lot of the jazz recordings — either the ones made in the U.S. and imported or the ones that featured Japanese artists.

Among those Western jazz artists popular in Japan have been Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Roberta Flack, Chick Corea, Oscar Peterson, David Sanborn, the Milt Jackson Quartet, the Jim Hall Quartet, and Phyllis Hyman.

For a lot of Western jazz musicians, their biggest market is Japan.

It is a really important market.

Jazz was brought over to Japan in the 1910s by luxury ocean liners with jazz bands and orchestras onboard for entertainment. After the end of World War II western forces occupied Japan, and the jazz scene flourished into a variety of subgenres from nu-jazz to acid jazz, and jazz fusion.

By the ’50s and ’60s Japanese musicians were playing popular jazz. The biggest name being pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi—now 93– who has released several albums recorded in The Blue Note Club, She was one of a very small handful of artists who insisted on playing bebop only. There was also hard bop drummer, Hideo Shiraki, the Sharps and Flats Big Band, pianists Hiromi Uehara, Masabumi Kikuchi, and Ryo Fukui; saxophonist and flutist, Sadao Watanabe, and, Hiroshi Suzuki whose music has been sampled by A Tribe Called Quest.

The Sony Corporation has built businesses at the intersection of creativity and technology, and by converging and intermingling music, film, and gaming. But with its branded partnership with the Blue Note Media Group (the sponsorship arm of BNEG) to launch Sony Hall in 2018, the company entered a new phase in its evolution.

Key to the agreement is the Sony Hall space itself located on West 46th Street. The 6,000 square-foot space, with full-service restaurant and bar, and with a capacity of 1,000 standing or 500 seated, features all of Sony’s technological advances.

Among the advanced sound, video, and lighting integrations are a multidimensional audio technology system, screens on both sides of the stage, projectors, a camera system for capturing and livestreaming shows, and soundboard tucked inside what used to be a dome in the ceiling.

A lot of the history of the Sony brand in sound and music permeates through that venue. Some distinctive audio/video capabilities for content capture exist in that venue as well. Then you look at some of the events that have been done as well. When the venue opened, there were a number of partnerships between Blue Note and Sony. We had Sony Music artists for album releases. The objective was to bring all of this together.

Blue Note kept the vibe of the original Paramount Hotel’s downstairs Diamond Horseshoe supper club.

Yeah. To set the stage. Blue Note was looking to create a new venue in New York City. When we saw the space initially, we were in awe. There’s literally is no other space in New York like this. This is a special place, you see it, and feel it right away when you walk into the venue.

Theatrical showman, and one-time husband of Fanny Brice, Billy Rose opened the Diamond Horseshoe in 1938, and for years it featured vaudeville-style revues. The theater and club shuttered in 1951 and was renamed the Mayfair Theater when reopened in 1961, becoming the Century Theater in 1978, and again renamed the Diamond Horseshoe in 2013 when refurbished by Randy Weiner and Simon Hammerstein to host the off-Broadway immersive theatrical show “Queen of the Night.” Afterward, the ballroom, while rented out for special events, largely stayed dark.

Why in New York City?

Blue Note has always had a very strong footprint in New York beyond just the Blue Notes (clubs). At one point, it was just the Blue Notes, but for a very long time it was multiple venues. Not just focusing on jazz, but also different genres. And to that point, building off that kind of presence, ownership was looking to create a new venue, to open a new venue in the city.

With the Sony/Blue Note partnership in place, early conversations quickly centered around the idea of integrating tech and live entertainment.

When I was on the Blue Note side, the objective was how can we bring the rich heritage of the Sony brand in audio, music, and culture to life in a way that permeates through the concert-going experience.

That led to discussions with Sony Japan, and the result was creating a new venue brand called Sony Hall. Technically, if you look at the press releases, it was (about) the sponsorship, but it is a lot more than that. It is an actual partnership that really permeates through the venue experience. It was the first venue in the world, I believe, to support playback at 360 reality audio that was named as such in 2018 when the venue opened.

In essence, you created a super club.

You said it. I didn’t.

Live events and interactive music experiences sit at the heart of so many metaverse aspirations today. Platforms are now delivering hybrid IRL-virtual events for both stay-at-home, and event audiences. Plus, there are platforms offering up shared virtual worlds.

An early example of the power of branded corporate partnerships is Blue Note’s 2016 brand partnership with the Intel Corporation, which experimented with 360-degree video, 3D audio content, and live-streaming music in virtual reality from Sony Hall.

We were kind of pushing those limits into VR space years ago. In 2016, there was a little project called Rivet VR, a Blue Note-funded startup working in virtual reality via a mobile app (linking up with the then-new Intel Xeon processor E3 v5 family). We used Intel’s new server to power a livestream from Blue Note New York – a free show with Living Colour.

You could say we were almost too ahead of the curve in focusing on VR in 2016.

There are so many young people now seeking to push the boundaries of immersive experiences. A ticketed digital avatar concert can now take place with or without your favorite artist. A decade from now venues will likely be far different in design, and the audience experience will quite different.

Yeah. That is a very great point, and it remains to be seen what that will be what the evolving landscape of tech. We see metaverse in the headlines everywhere. It’s an evolving space. So it will be very interesting to see what the next 10 years will look like in that area for the live music experience.

Your job at Blue Note Entertainment took you to Cuba, China, and Poland.

I got to see the world. Join Blue Note, see the world.

At Blue Note you also met your wife, Theresa Vibberts, (executive VP of CAMI Music, a live event production and artist management firm).

I did meet Theresa at the Blue Note because she had a client performing, and I was the director of marketing at the time. I met some of my dearest friends at the Blue Note. I met my dear friend Alex Kurland at the Blue Note back in 2010, before either of us worked there. I started my relationship with Sony Corporation at the Blue Note. I’ve had such a great relationship with the people there, and that place is always home.

With CAMI Music representing classical, dance, opera artists, and theatrical productions, including the American Ballet Theatre, pianist Lang Lang, composer/conductors Alexandre Desplat, composer/musician Andy Akiho, and conductors Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Otto Tausk, and Michael Torke, has Theresa broadened your appreciation of classical, opera, and theatre?

I’d say performing arts in general. A misnomer is that people think that CAMI Music is just classical music, but she can speak to classical music. She can speak to dance. She is currently doing the “Immersive Monet” show in New York (at the Seamen’s Bank Building). So I’ve learned quite a bit on that arts side of the business from Theresa. Her role as a manager, and her role as an agent, is pretty amazing.

You grew up as a hyperactive kid with a father who was engrossed with both music– high quality music- and with Sony audio and video products.

Your father’s passion for Sony included him owning a Sony-branded Surround system, a minidisc recorder, a Dream Machine clock radio, headphones, Walkmans, a Discman, a Handycam, and an SACD player.

While a young teenager your father would drag you into audio equipment stores.

I grew up outside of Philadelphia in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, and yes, my dad was an audiophile. Everything in the house was Sony from a hardware standpoint. He was big on SACD (the optical disc format for audio storage developed by Sony and Philips Electronics that was intended to be the successor to the CD format), and I was into jazz.

Your interest in jazz began early, and throughout middle and high school, you were immersed in the music in grade five, you decided you wanted to play saxophone. At 11, when you purchased your first album, it was “Live at the Lighthouse” by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. At 13, you attended your first concert that featured tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Center City, Philadelphia in 2003.

You caught up with Sonny Rollins as he was leaving, and asked for and received an autograph.

That had to be life changing.

I was really into jazz growing up. I was fascinated by it. I used to read DownBeat, and Jazz Times and I analyzed bands.

As a jazz head, you were a fan of cutting-edge players like Stan Getz. John Coltrane, João Gilberto, Joshua Redman, and Branford Marsalis; and later embracing jazz fusion, you were enthralled by Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and Steps Ahead.

Between 14 and 16, you went with your father to jazz clubs in West Philly, and you often were allowed to sit in?

Yes, Smoky jazz clubs. This was before the indoor smoking ban in Philly.

As a serious musician throughout high school, you worked with your own band performing locally at talent, and art festival shows, and you considered a career as a professional musician.

As I said I was really into jazz growing up as a kid, and later. I started playing saxophone in middle school. I come from the same township and public high school (Cheltenham High School in the Wyncote neighborhood of Cheltenham Township) that has bred a lot of very well-known jazz musicians like the Brecker Brothers (Randy and Michael), (jazz fusion star) Jeff Lorber, and (contemporary jazz saxophonist/composer) Andy Snitzer.

This township also produced (prime minister of Israel) Benjamin Netanyahu, and (Hall of Fame baseball player) Reggie Jackson. They all came from this high school. More recently there’s been the rapper/comedian/actor Lil Dickey.

When I was at Cheltenham High School, I corresponded with Michael Brecker, as a fellow alum, and with his sister Emily Brecker Greenberg. Michael got sick, and I did some benefit concerts.

What appealed to you about jazz? The freedom?

The depth and complexity of the music fascinated me as much as the freedom. Maybe, with improvisation, freedom is a better word for it.

Or you can argue for the mathematics of jazz. “Thelonious Monk once said. “All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians,” and jazz musicians like John Coltrane were very much aware of the mathematics of music and, he consciously applied it to his works.

I don’t think it was mathematics for me. It was just the layers of complexity, and where you can take the music. I couldn’t read sheet music well, but I have an incredible ear that lent itself to being a stronger improviser

Prior to starting your freshman year at Temple University in Philadelphia, you came to the realization that becoming a world-class professional musician was not going to happen for you. When you reached Temple, you stopped playing.

I knew I didn’t want to play when I hit college.

What was your major at Temple University?

I started as a poli-sci major, and that changed after one semester to communications after I started at DL Media (in Feb. 2009). The job at DL Media inspired my major for communications because I was (full-time) at DL Media all throughout undergrad.

For the first semester of your freshman year, having a lot of free time, you were able to briefly be a jazz jock at WRTI, the college’s radio station.

Indeed, that was in 2009. I did 12-6 AM shifts, 12-3 AM shifts and 3-6 AM shifts. Only once a week as an 18-year-old student.

You were hired the same year at DL Media in Bala Cynwyd, five days before Barack Obama’s January 20th inauguration as President—for what was to be a summer internship.

I figured if there was a way to have a job working with the artists that I love, then I would do that. I didn’t even know what those jobs entailed, or what jobs existed.

However, this was in the midst of the Great Recession and, coupled with DL Media’s biggest client Blue Note Records departing as it became the flagship jazz label for Capitol Records, caused most of DL Media’s small staff to leave. You practically became the last man standing.

You stayed at DL Media for 5 years, which would have been like getting a Ph.D. in jazz studies.

To set the stage. I was 19, I was in college, and the company was going through some transformations. (Owner) Don Lucoff was expanding his scope. We started booking the Portland Jazz Festival in Portland. The traits to be a publicist were very natural for me. In high school, I always had an appetite for communications and writing. I was the editor of the school paper. All of that, paired with my love of jazz, and really having a desire and hunger to break into the music industry, set me up and set me off. I started my career there. I learned PR in that environment.

I knew Don prior to DL Media. From when he was an associate at Peter Levinson Communications, working with Antonio Carlos Jobim, B.B. King, Woody Herman, Bill Evans, the Count Basie Orchestra, Mel Tormé, and Rosemary Clooney.

You go way back. He gave me my first shot.

Don Lucoff has been marketing jazz professionally since 1983. He got his start in music when he took on a 6-10 A.M. shift at KCR college radio while enrolled at San Diego State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing.

In 1985, Irving Azoff, then president of MCA Records, oversaw MCA’s re-entry into the jazz market by hiring Zebra Records founder Ricky Schultz to conceive and direct MCA Jazz—and reactivate Impulse! Records, and sign the GRP label for distribution—hiring Don Lucoff  as national director of publicity for MCA Jazz which became Billboard’s # 1 Jazz label during its first three years with a roster of Michael Brecker, Larry Carlton, Keiko Matsui, George Howard, Yellowjackets, and the Rippingtons.

Working at DL Media, you got a lot of experience in dealing with assorted labels too.

Yeah, it was particularly exciting working with a wide variety of labels in that role. Labels, festivals, and independent artists. One of the incredible opportunities was the re-launching of OKeh Records through Sony Music Masterworks in 2013 and dealing with (senior VP for Sony Masterworks U.S.) Chuck Mitchell, and Wulf Müller (Sony Classical’s exclusive jazz A&R and marketing consultant who oversaw A&R for OKeh Records).

(Founded in 1918, OKeh built its reputation with artists from the classic jazz and blues with such iconic talents as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, King Oliver, and Sidney Bechet.

Focusing on both new and established artists who embodied “global expressions in jazz,” the re-launched OKeh kicked off with releases by John Medeski, David Sanborn & Bob James, as well as Bill Frisell and Dhafer Youssef.)

Released in November 2022 was Wulf Müller’s book “A Life In Music – A Chronicle” which starts in 1955 and ends in early 2022, after Müller’s retirement from the music business. It tells the story of his beginnings in Vienna at PolyGram, to working in London for Universal Music International and finally running OKeh Records for Sony Classical from Madrid. He has lot of stories how the business works, and about working with Sting, Ornette Coleman, Status Quo, Deep Purple, Pat Metheny, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Chick Corea.)

Wulf is a good friend.

Coming to DL Media as a newbie with fresh eyes, with the music and technology communities at odds with each other over digital music being available on the internet, you likely saw veteran music people running around declaring, “We are doomed!”

What was interesting was that I started in 2009. So, step back for a minute and look at the macro of what was going on in the industry then. Streaming didn’t exist at that point. It was still in this kind of transition where, yeah downloads were a thing, but physical was losing money. It was post-recession, and social media was not in full force. So, when I entered, between the macro conditions of the industry, and the media climate changing, it was a really interesting time to jump into the pool.

Labels feared a re-run of the MTV scenario where a company was built on their backs.

Ted Cohen, managing partner, TAG Strategic once told me of meeting with a group of label executives around 1999. According to Ted, “There was a guy in London, a few years ago, who said, “Nothing leaves this room.” Later, in a conversation, I asked him what the biggest impediment was in getting a deal done at his label. “He said, “My boss. He’s an asshole. He wouldn’t know digital if it hit him in the ass.”

The overriding sentiment with labels, and music publishers that bled down to managers, artists, and songwriters was, “The sky is falling.”

I remember this. I absolutely remember this with calls with clients, and interfacing with marketing and sales teams. The dominant focus of that firm was doing publicity for albums for the most part. So, I worked with a lot of record labels and artists. It was a rough period for the industry. It was a really awkward period.

At DL Media, you also got to see the strengths and weaknesses of music-related media. Music publicity then was primarily centered around touring.

Yeah. There was definitely more touring for sure. But on the media side to your point of being a newbie, it was really interesting because I started as a newbie publicist which was different in 2009 when blogs were popping up. Everybody was trying to figure out what social media was, and how it functioned for driving marketing publicity. This was years and years before influencers were a thing. Message boards were still a thing. I got my start looking at new media. Social engagement in the early days of social, blogs, etc. Even with print media changing. Keep in mind at that time in the middle of the recession and fear of post-recession, for tour press, local media was drying up at that point.

People were pulling advertising from newspapers.

Yeah, because of the digital transformation and also economic conditions. On one hand, if you look at it from a traditional standpoint, people had been there a long time working in the physical.  “Oh my God, like the house is on fire.” I come in and it was, “Oh well there’s this thing called the internet.”

In the earliest days of consumer internet, when Internet service providers like America Online, Prodigy, Earthlink, and CompuServe, dominated early access in the U.S., subscribers mostly relied on their phone line for connection to the internet.

No one could use the phone when someone was on internet  

Anyone connecting in the mid-90s through to the mid-2000s knows of the dial-up modem connection being soundtracked by a cacophony of electronic hisses and beeps.

Before the invention of the World Wide Web in 1993, most Internet access still was from personal computers and workstations directly connected to local area networks (LANs) or from dial-up connections using modems, and analog telephone lines.

Information was difficult to search for.

By the mid-1990s, Netscape had about 80% of the browser market in the U.S. and Europe. Its only real competitor was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which first launched with Windows 95.

It wasn’t until Apple purchased Steve Job’s NeXT to improve Mac OS, and he returned to Apple, delivering an inspirational speech in 1997 detailing the future of Mac OS that led to Microsoft investing $150 million in the firm that things began to change.

By 1998, the Apple iMac and PowerBook G3 were popular, and Apple was a force to be reckoned with.

Apple’s first iPhone in 2007 had a 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and topped out at just 16 GB of storage. It didn’t even support third-party apps.

Keep in mind when I started in 2009 at DL Media, the iPhone was what a year in change old. I had just gotten the iPhone in Sept. 2008.

With all of the new media today, you can go online or check through the music streaming services and tap into any era or any of the sub-genres of jazz. It’s a far different age.

It certainly is. The way that we communicate to the public to reach consumers, and to reach other industries is evolving. It has been evolving for years. I like to think that my background in media, certainly in PR, going into marketing, and kind of riding with that changing media, was a blueprint. Being in marketing, you have to communicate something. How you do it is very different with the audience right now and, it’s an interesting time.

Jazz goes in and out of popularity, but with all of the varied media available today from online to film and TV, reissues, and new artists, jazz has continual visibility. Plus, jazz travels well because much of the genre is instrumental.

At the end of the day, if you look at pop too, a lot of hit pop stars look to jazz musicians as kind of the Holy Grail of musicianship, and artistry, and there is just something very sacred about that music that is widely respected. I don’t think that there is any pop or hip hop or any artist in other genres did would not respect the art of what jazz musicians bring to the table.

A lot of pop and rock musicians and progressive rock fans of the late 60s and onwards grew up listening to jazz music. They likely listened to John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Art Tatum,  Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Hancock, João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the Tony Williams Lifetime.

I started my career in that space, and kind of evolved into broader pastures.

I don’t know many leading musicians in rock and pop that would not claim Miles Davis “Kinda Blues” as part of their core recording collection.

I keep the 6-CD box set “Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings” (1996) close at hand. Their partnership spanned 1957 to 1968, and encompassed such LPs as “Miles Ahead,” “Porgy and Bess,” “Sketches Of Spain,” and “Quiet Nights.”

Seminal artists, seminal albums that guide the way for a lot of creation that is happening today. If you look at the genres right now and how everything is blending together, people like Miles were doing that 50 years ago.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is a co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

O

The post Interview: Marketing Generalist Jordy Freed appeared first on CelebrityAccess.

While vinyl recordings, once on the verge of being relegated to history’s technological junk bin, have become one of the music industry’s biggest comeback stories, it’s also evident that music memorabilia and collectibles sales are also now skyrocketing.

As a result, after a complete two-month shut-down, Rockaway Records in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, last year shifted from being a brick-and-mortar music Mecca to an appointment-only shop.

Co-founders and brothers Wayne (president/memorabilia buyer) and Gary (VP/vinyl buyer) expanded their high-end music memorabilia business, stocked up even more on highly sought-after vintage vinyl, and collectibles, and reopened their famed record shop of 40 years, but no longer accepted walk-in traffic.

A potential buyer needs to be in contact in advance, and make an appointment. Call 323-664-3232; Email info@rockaway.com.

While nearly every other independent record store and many chain outlets in Los Angeles have forever shut down, Rockaway has managed to stay open bolstered by the Johnson brothers traveling the world, acquiring and selling music collectibles.

Two years ago, during COVID’s earliest days, collectible prices soared as many people migrated to online music buying for the first time. Over time, with independent record stores firmly closed except for mail order, people discovered music collector sites and started purchasing at a frenetic rate.

Much of the collectibles and rare vinyl market today skew to the young, Gen Xers, and millennials largely interested in bands like the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Joy Division, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, and Jane’s Addiction as well as the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles.

Rockaway has continued aggressively acquiring extensive record industry and personal collections of vinyl as well as concert-related items, tour programs, promo items, and varied rarities.

The Johnsons are known to frequently pay five to six figures for valuable collections.

The two siblings began re-selling albums in 1979 after attending one of the legendary record swap meets at the Capitol Records parking lot in Hollywood. What began as a hobby quickly turned into a business when they opened their own Rockaway Records store, and soon afterward purchased Rainbow Records, a small well-known record store in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

Rockaway grew so quickly that it moved locations several times, finally settling into the present Silver Lake store in 1992.

To visit you these days at the store I have to make an appointment?

Oh exactly, yeah. We’ve gone from 50 to 60 customers a day before COVID to about 5 or 6 customers a day, and sales are better than they have been in 30 years.

In Los Angeles, one after another of the independent music retail stores disappeared over the years as musical formats changed from vinyl and cassettes to CDs, and to downloads, and streaming, and now back to vinyl, collectibles, and high-end memorabilia at retail.

How did you manage to flourish through 40 years?   

By changing. By constantly changing with the times. This business has changed so frequently. The transition from CDs to vinyl, and then CDs were phasing out, and then back to vinyl. We were always a step ahead of the changes or we were constantly watching, and changing where a lot of my competitors just refused to change. That’s the kiss of death in this business, especially today because everything changes so fast.

Last year, you shifted to an “appointment only” concept while vastly expanding your music memorabilia offerings. A lot of the product you had been selling was CDs. You weren’t making a great deal of money, and it was taking your staff too much time dealing with inventory, stocking, and other retail issues.

Oh exactly. We had way too much stuff, and room. And worse than the cheap vinyl were the cheap CDs. The average price of a CD was $3. We sold tons of them, but it wasn’t worth the labor.

I think where many independent retailers went wrong was in opening up affiliated record labels as well.

That’s a whole other ballgame that I wouldn’t even think about getting into. We had a good diversity of everything for the longest time. We kind of catered to all music lovers. That is why I kept selling $3 CDs as well as $10,000 and $20,000 records. We had something for everybody which people loved. And to be honest with you, before COVID, I knew that we were wasting a lot of overhead on the cheaper stuff. I knew it, but I couldn’t bear to disappoint my customers. But COVID forced me to consider making a change. Then I realized how much of a difference that it made, and I had to face that I couldn’t keep going on that way.

I was recently in New York to see Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” musical, and while in Manhattan, I always go past where the Colony Record store was at 1619 Broadway. It breaks my heart looking at the storefront now. The Colony Record store closed in 2012 after 64 years following its landlord announcing plans to jack up the monthly rent from around $1 million to as much as $5 million.

The Colony Record store was first located at Broadway and West 52nd Street, but in 1970, it moved to the corner of West 49th Street and Broadway, where its neon signs, and windows full of sheet music became a beacon for all music lovers.

As Liz Woolman wrote in a blog published by Oxford University Press:  “The largest and easily most famous provider of sheet music in New York City, Colony also houses cassettes, CDs, DVDs, karaoke recordings, an absolutely enormous collection of records, and all kinds of memorabilia, pop music action figures and Beatles mousepads; signed, fading photographs of A-, B-, and C-list celebrities from every decade that the store has been open; novelty key chains and promotional buttons from countless Broadway musicals; old concert programs, playbills, and T-shirts; Ramones coffee mugs, and ‘Glee’ lunchboxes; and locked shrines in dank corners, filled with dusty Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley collectibles.”

How co-owners Michael Grossbardt and Richard Turk, whose fathers, Harold S. “Nappy” Grossbardt, and Sidney Turk started the store in 1948 as partners, ever got out of that space with all of the product that was there– more than one million vinyl records, and sheet music from virtually every Broadway show and film ever made—is beyond me.

I knew Alan Grossbard as well. He had some amazing stuff. I don’t know if you noticed but he priced everything so high that he wouldn’t close sales. Everything was faded. Much of what he had was ruined because it was faded by the light. It sat there for years.

The good stuff was in the basement.

Right, which he has been selling on eBay. I haven’t talked to him in 5 years or more, but he was selling what he had left on eBay. He might be out of it now. I have no idea.

A resurgence in vinyl began about 12 years ago, it just seems to be exploding ever since. I’m just seeing people spending up to $1,000 for new special edition vinyl releases. At the same time prices on vinyl from 1995 to 2005 have skyrocketed. Those were the years when the record companies scaled back pressings with the advent of downloads, and streaming.

What qualities drive up the value of a vinyl recording? Name value, and quality obviously and of course, how many first-generation master recordings were issued. What else?

Demand. How collectible an artist is. The big thing today is condition. When we started 40 years ago, good condition to mint meant double to triple (pricing). Today, it could be 20 or 30 times the difference. Everybody wants mint stuff. It is basically following in all of the other fields of collectibles. Other collectibles have known for years how important condition is.

I’ve seen numerous collections of original vinyl still in the original shrink wrap. Not one record opened. 

That’s the super valuable stuff. To give you an idea of how important condition is, take a “Meet The Beatles!” album in mono from 1964. What most people call pretty good condition, I sell for about $20. Mint $400 or $500 to $3,000 or $4,000. That’s the difference what condition is.

What stands up well is the Japanese Toshiba-EMI EAS series of the Beatles’ pressings of the 1970s. I’m blown away by the quality of the recordings and the quietness of the vinyl. These are considered by most collectors to be among the best sounding Beatles albums issued anywhere. Also impressive are the original UK Parlophone Beatles pressing.

Most people used to think that they were the best. Ten years ago the Japanese vinyl was going for good money. Now everyone says the UK pressings sound better and they are going up in price even way more.

The Brits put a lot more care into every aspect of music reproduction.

People love British vinyl. The price of British vinyl in the past 10 years has skyrocketed. Even common British albums. Like you take a U.S. Zombies’ “Odessey & Oracle,” you might get $100 for it. The UK version is $1,000.

A rock history irony is that the Zombies’ 1968 album “Odessey & Oracle” released wasn’t a hit until a year later and after the members had parted ways. Even then it only reached #95 on Billboard’s album chart while its single “Time of the Season” reached #3 on Billboard’s Hot 100. And neither charted in the UK.

First of all, the UK pressings weren’t as big (In size) as the U.S. pressings, obviously. And very few people in the UK took care of their records. It is really hard to find clean UK records from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

The first I heard of rock memorabilia being collectible was following Peter Morton and Isaac Tigrett opening the first Hard Rock Cafe in London in 1971. in 1979, Eric Clapton donated an un-signed Red Fender Lead II guitar. He wanted management to hang the guitar over his regular seat in the restaurant. After the Clapton donation, Hard Rock’s founders received a package that contained a black Gibson Les Paul, and a note that read “Mine’s as good as his. Love, Pete” from Pete Townshend. Since then rock artifacts have become the beating heart of the Hard Rock Hotels and Resorts, and Hard Rock Cafes brands globally.

That stuff was so cheap back in the day. We started in ’79. I wish I could go back in time and buy some of the stuff that we sold. A good example, one of the things that I wish I had from 1980 or 1981 is the Andy Warhol lithograph of Mick Jagger signed by both Warhol and Jagger. I couldn’t give it away at the time. I was asking $1,500 for it. I paid $800 for it. I had it for like a year. Nobody had any interest in it. Finally, somebody gave me $900 for it. So I got my money back. Do you know what that’s worth today?

Your local competition earlier was likely Delicious Vinyl, Licorice Pizza, Rhino Records, Atomic Records, and Amoeba Music.

As Quentin Tarantino put it, “I would say Amoeba is pretty good. I don’t know if I’d call them ‘the best in the world,’ but they’re pretty damn good for Los Angeles, I will say that.”

The new Amoeba Music location at 6200 Hollywood Blvd. opened on April 1st, 2021. The original Amoeba Hollywood was formerly situated at 6400 Sunset Blvd.

Increasingly, in focusing on vinyl, collectibles, and high-end memorabilia, your competition has become the Hard Rock Hotels and Resorts, and Hard Rock Cafes, and auction houses like Julien’s Auctions. in Culver City, Sotheby’s, and Christie’s which host auctions of major music figures.

As do such online sites as Backstage Auctions, Pristine Auctions, Rockstar Galley, and Analog.

All of these various online auction sites, that’s your competition.

You are absolutely right. They are competition, but what most people don’t realize is that, yes, you see these ridiculous prices on a few items that they get, but 90% of the items in their auctions I could pay upfront than what they end up with. Julien’s is a great example. A few years ago they had a belt buckle that was given to someone by John Lennon, and they listed it as “Belt Buckle, owned by John Lennon.” No big deal. And I knew all about it. I know you worked for Record World trade magazine. So you knew Spence Berland.

Oh yes, I knew Spence who died in 2017. As senior VP of Record World in the ‘70s, he ran our West Coast office. He was a master at selling ads for special “tributes” to artists, record companies executives, distributors, and rack jobbers. You name it. Spence knew all the greats, the near greats, and the greatest.

He was a good friend of mine too.

In 1974 John Lennon gave Spence a belt buckle.  

Spence Berland often wore a rare RCA “Nipper” promotional belt buckle. John Lennon saw it and really wanted it. After several requests for Spence to let him have it, John ended up trading Spence his own 3.5″ x 2.25″ buckle (nickel/silver with 9 turquoise stones) for the RCA buckle. John also gave Spence a handwritten note in black marker which said, “To Spence Belt up! Love John Lennon ‘74.”

I knew about this belt buckle, but Julien’s, in my opinion, did a terrible job in listing it. I got it for $4,000, and got it away for $15,000. I would have paid Spence $10,000 if it had come to me. Instead, he ended up with about $2,500.

One of your strengths as a buyer is that you are aware of, and understand, the history of what is being offered for sale.  

Exactly.

I do love Julien’s lavish catalogs.

Oh, yes.

They are worth up to $1,000. I have several. Julien’s specializes in entertainment memorabilia and celebrity estate auctions. Over the past 16 years, it has held auctions for the collections of U2, Cher, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Alex, and Eddie Van Halen, Kurt Cobain, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,  Prince, Elton John, and Little Richard. Julien’s deals with a lot of high-end memorabilia. I love Cher. But I don’t want to own anything of hers.

Yeah, the auction houses do good sometimes but, to be honest with you, they don’t do their homework right. We research everything and hate to say it, but there’s tons of stuff at the big auction houses that I believe is phony. Autographs, gold records, sealed albums.  We are way pickier than they are. I don’t want to sell something unless I am absolutely certain that it is real. The auction houses just take too much stuff, and say, “Oh, this looks pretty good. We’ll take it.”

Music memorabilia is one of the best ways for fans to connect on a more personal level with their idols. It can also be an incredibly valuable asset with high-yield potential. Prices have risen not just for the rarest items, but also for pieces that might have been collecting dust in garages and attics. Many of those items make it onto consumer auction sites like eBay, while others are put up for bidding by auction houses or sites.

People look at the prices of music memorabilia —everything from tour posters to lithos to T-shirts, autographs and albums, clothes—and they’ll say, “This stuff is so expensive” to purchase. I got news for them. Music memorabilia is cheap compared to say sports memorabilia.

I would say exactly the same thing.

Game-worn jerseys have had a banner year on the auction block in a market that has grown exponentially more lucrative in recent years.

The blue kit worn by the late Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona when he scored his unforgettable “Hand of God” goal during the quarterfinal match of the 1986 World Cup against England fetched $9.3 million in an online Sotheby’s sale in May (2022), then setting a new high-water mark for sports memorabilia.

Five months later the record was surpassed by Sotheby’s when the jersey Michael Jordan wore during Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $10.1 million.

A mint condition Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps baseball card sold in August (2022) for $12.6 million. It surpassed the $7.25 million for a century-old Honus Wagner baseball card sold earlier in a private sale. There’s also  the Luka Doncic rookie card, and the LeBron James rookie card which were sold for $4.6 million and $5.2 million respectively.

The card trading market has grown even more lucrative of late.

I’ve been saying exactly the same thing. When I see a baseball card selling for $12.6 million and even worse than that–sports is important—but what gets me is that a Pokémon card sold for $1 million. Is that ridiculous or what?

There is only one known PSA grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator card in the world, according to Guinness Book of World Records. In 2021, podcaster, actor, and professional WWE wrestler Logan Paul purchased a PSA grade 9 Pikachu Illustrator card for $1.275 million. He traded this card, along with $4 million, to obtain the PSA grade 10 card he now owns which is said to be worth $5,275,000. The sale was acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the most expensive Pokémon trading card sold in a private sale.

A graded 9.5 Pokémon Illustrator card, valued at more than $1 million, is owned by New Raiders’ linebacker Blake Martinez.

Another industry with an insane resell market is video games including rare PlayStation 2 and Playstation 3 games, consoles, and accessories. Among the leading video game collectibles are Street Fighter statues, Mortal Kombat, and Marvel Games figures as well as heroes from modern hits like The Witcher and The Last of Us to classics like The Legend of Zelda, and Sonic the Hedgehog,

I know. All this rock and roll stuff is a bargain. People are going to look back in a few years and say, “I wish that I had bought that.” Some things are starting to go up. It’s good to see. Are you familiar with the Rolling Stones “Street Fighting Man” picture sleeve? I sold my first one in ’82 for $1,600, which was probably a world record for a 45 at that time. A few years ago, I sold one for $15,000, and it sold really quickly. I got another one in, and that sold for $20,000. Then just recently I heard someone got $80,000 for one.

It’s definitely the rarest Rolling Stones’ picture sleeve, and one of the rarest picture sleeves of all, very, very desirable, but that’s a big jump.

I’m not sure if that $80,000 was a fluke or if that is the new price, but I am hoping it’s the new price because it deserves it. One of the rarest picture sleeves in the world by one of the most collectible bands. Eighty grand is petty cash in the sports market. A wrecked Honus Wagner baseball card is worth $2 million. That’s crazy.

In late August 1968, just before the Chicago Democratic National Convention, where riots broke out between demonstrators and the Chicago police force, the Rolling Stones released “Street Fighting Man” as the lead single for the unreleased “Beggars Banquet” album.

“Street Fighting Man” was the follow-up to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” which had been a worldwide hit.

This was the first picture sleeve released by the Stones that did not feature an image of the band. The picture sleeve used two images depicting police brutality taken from one of the many riots that had broken out in over 100 American cities earlier that year. Decca deemed the sleeve to be inappropriate, and it was immediately withdrawn. No one knows for sure how many sleeves survived, but many collectors estimate the number to be between 10 and 18 copies.

How did you come to oversee the sale offering of a 16″ x 48″ plastic piece of The Ed Sullivan Theater moveable wall signed by all four Beatles before they went onstage for their second set on Feb. 9th, 1964 at the request of stagehand Jerry Gort? All four Beatles signed on the back of the wall and drew a caricature next to each autograph.

First of all, I don’t own it, and I wasn’t able to sell it. So the consigner has it back. After the ’65 Ed Sullivan Show season, they were tearing down the whole stage and throwing away the backdrop. One of the workers there knew a handicapped Beatle fan (Lofton Sproles),  “I know somebody who is going to like this.” So he cut it out and gave it to him. Then years later (in the mid-80s) he sold it to the owner of a bar in Baton Rouge (Rodney Cary of the Southdowns Lounge), and It was up on display for years. Then I think Frank Caiazzo bought it. He’s a leading Beatle collector, and he sold it to a local collector here in L.A.—a good customer, a good friend of mine; we go back 25 years ago—I think it was 50 or 100 grand. We turned down two offers of half a million for it. He wanted at least $600,000 for himself. So it wasn’t enough. He decided to keep it. I think he was smart to do that because that thing is the most important piece of rock history.

That section of wall should be in a museum.

Yeah. One day it is going to sell for millions. I have no doubt. I told him, “Don’t give it away.” So he’s sitting on it for now. It’s an incredible, incredible piece. I tried to sell it, and I had it for a while. Lots of people wanted it but nobody wanted to go more than $550,000.

On the other hand, due to the advent of eCommerce music memorabilia trading platforms, the entertainment marketplace is teeming with fake memorabilia. The risk of purchasing forged music memorabilia has grown in recent years.  Three years ago, I was in a Las Vegas shop selling music memorabilia that the clerk claimed was authentic. I walked through the store saying, “This is phony. This is phony. So is that.”

They are phony. Practically every shop in Vegas has nothing but phony autographs. They have Beatles’ autographs for $10,000 that I could sell in a second for $100,000 if they were real. Why would they be selling a real autograph for $10,000? It doesn’t make sense.

Autographs that sold two years ago for $50 have jumped to $200 now. And many previously $200 autographs are now going for $500 or more.

Artists are making tons of money just signing things. That’s why a lot of artists refuse to sign now. They know what things are worth. The autograph market is another market that has skyrocketed in the last few years. A lot of prices have tripled in the past few years.

You and I have both worked in music for decades so we have a very good idea of what is real and what isn’t real, but it is easy to be fooled.

Right. But some times it’s difficult though. It’s not that easy to tell. The forgers for autographs are so good that I will be honest with you. I have been in this for over 40 years, and I cannot tell phony Beatles autographs. The forgers are so good. Luckily we are good friends with the leading Beatle authenticator in the world (Frank Caiazzo). I wouldn’t buy anything without his authentication.

The emergence of COVID led to Rockaway attracting more diverse buyers. First timers discovered your website. Buyers who couldn’t or wouldn’t shop because they were nervous about leaving their houses.

You are absolutely right. It turned music lovers into collectors. Pre-COVID, there were a lot of popular artists that I would never consider collectible. Katy Perry for one. She’s hugely successful, obviously but I never had people asking for her stuff. After COVID, her stuff is selling great.

Anyone from this period that might be collectible in a few years?

It’s hard to say, but I’m guessing people like Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift. They are important artists of today. Who else? To be honest I don’t keep up with the new music as much as I should. I grew up in the ‘60s. There isn’t too much music coming out today that I love, unfortunately. I try to listen to it, but I still love my ‘60s and ‘70s stuff.

So, Taylor Swift is collectible?

Oh exactly. It seems that any popular artist today is collectible as well. If they are popular they are going to be collectible. The world of collectibles has changed drastically. Not just because of COVID, but all of this limited edition vinyl.

In many cases, the reissued limited vinyl sets with additional tracks are used by artists to establish a new copyright.

That’s part of it, but the thing is when a new vinyl comes out of any artist who is halfway collectible, they don’t make one version they make 6 versions, and the collectors have to have them all.

That was the case with EPs in the late ‘70s and ‘80s that featured unreleased tracks, especially with those  EPs released in the UK.

Yes, but not to this extreme. The last Paul McCartney album, “McCartney III” (2020) —I love Paul McCartney he’s my #2 guy, but his last album was awful. Yet, they made 6 different colored vinyl versions, and one of them sells for $2,000. It’s the one that Third Man Store put out. They only did 333 copies. “McCartney III”  yellow vinyl with black spots.

This special McCartney edition went on sale October 21st, 2020, prior to the official announcement of “McCartney III“. Considering the very low number of copies, it sold out within minutes, and prices then skyrocketed on eBay days after. Third Man Records also manufactured a Red Edition limited edition of 3,000 copies.

Major labels, including Warner Bros. Records, CBS, and Mercury released limited edition live promotional recordings to radio in the ‘70s and ’80s. Are those original vinyl albums worth much today?

The better artists are. They are fairly common because Warner Bros. always did a lot of promos. The common artists are the less collectible ones and are probably worth less today than they were back in the day. But the U2 ones sell very well and there are a few others. Real collectible artists sell well.

There were also a slew of syndicated radio shows in the ‘70s and ‘80s that featured concert performances by leading rock and country recording artists. The two leaders were The King Biscuit Flower Hour, an American syndicated radio show presented by the D.I.R. Radio Network, and Westwood One along with Rockline Radio, Pulsebeat Productions, BBC Rock Radio, and “Innerview,” hosted by Jim Ladd.

Those are good because they are live shows. The interview radio shows have probably dropped in value. I used to do a ton of business with radio shows in the ‘80s. Westwood One was here in L.A. The radio show market was huge. Today, it’s the better ones that have gone up in value. The common ones have dropped in value.

It’s the same with most promos.

Everybody thinks that promo CDs, and promo vinyl are always going to keep going up in price. Not the case. I will give you a good example. Remember the first Beatles’ promo CD “Free As  A Bird”? When that came out (in 1995), the first month I probably sold 100 copies for $40 a piece. Today, it’s worth about $2 if you are lucky. The record companies made so many of most promos, especially Warner Bros. Warner Bros. was probably the worst. Everybody at Warner Bros. knew the collectors market so they had extras, and gave them to their buddies and friends. Most of the promo stuff is not too valuable. Certain labels are. Columbia was less generous with their promos so some of the Michael Jackson CDs sell for hundreds of dollars because they didn’t make thousands of them. They made a few hundred of them. Big, big difference.

The UK BBC releases, those are quite valuable because they were very, very limited.

What about bootleg releases from The Amazing Kornyphone Record Label, The Swingin’ Pig, Yellow Dog Records, and Trademark of Quality? Their popularity exploded following Bob Dylan’s 1969 album “Great White Wonder,” a compilation of studio outtakes and demos; and the  Rolling Stones’ “Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be,” an audience recording of a late 1969 show that received a positive review in Rolling Stone.

Trademark Quality is the best. Very very collectible especially the ones on colored vinyl. The prices of the bootlegs today don’t depend so much on the quality (of the recording). It depends more on the color. People love the colored vinyl ones, especially the marbled color ones. I sold some early Trademark bootlegs for as much as $2,000.

In the ‘80s, labels like A&M and Columbia, as well as Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, released remastered versions of popular albums, using half-speed mastering from the original analog master tapes without compression, and with minimal equalization. The recordings were pressed in Japan using a plastic compound, invented by JVC,

Mobile Fidelity, yes. That market is really strong for those recordings. That is one of the few areas that has remained strong. The vinyl is great, and even the CDs sell, whereas 99% of the CDs out there are practically worthless.

Why is that? For the first 5 years of CDs there wasn’t much of improvement. For older releases, labels just used a copy of the analog master with limited enhancement.

That’s correct. But besides that, there is a big difference between CDs and vinyl. I probably reject 90% to 95% of the vinyl that is offered to me because of the condition. The condition is just not good enough. CDs are the opposite. 90% to 95% of the CDs out there are brand new or you just change the jewel case and you have a brand new CD. People took care of their CDs. So there is such a glut of CDs out there.

I would imagine that 8-tracks and cassettes aren’t highly valued unless it is something extraordinary.

Exactly. I sold a cassette for $7,000 not too long ago but it was the original “Black” album (by Prince) that got scrapped in the ‘80s, and it was the only known copy on cassette. So that’s why.

“The Black Album” was abandoned shortly before its intended release in 1987. Prince recalled all copies and abandoned the project. Almost immediately the album emerged in bootleg form. An original copy of Prince’s “The Black Album” sold for $27,500 in 2018, the high mark for any record sold on the Discogs site at the time. That album had been rescued from a pressing that was ordered to be destroyed.

How about ‘70s and ‘80s TV compilations released on album, tape and 8 track By K-Tel, Ronco, Arcade, TeeVee, Warwick, and Telstar?

Various artist records, in general, have very little value.

How old are you and your brother?

I’m 69. Gary is 63.

You and Gary began re-selling albums in 1979 after attending one of the legendary monthly record swap meets in the parking lot of Capitol  Records in Hollywood?

That’s what made our business. That changed my life. It just opened my eyes. Before the Capitol Swap Meet I was a music lover since I was 10 years old, but I had no idea that used records had any value. I just assumed that they were worthless

Everyone on the planet went to the Capitol meets. That’s what you did. Even if you didn’t need anything you would go to see what everybody else was doing or go to talk to people. It was great thing while it lasted.It just opened my eyes. My brother and I started going to garage sales, and swap meets the week after.

In the ‘70s heyday of the Capitol Record Swap Meet, vendors ranged from those selling cheap, used LP’s from the trunks of their cars to those that set up makeshift stores to sell all sorts of rare records and memorabilia.

By 1980, the meet was moved indoors to various locations and bootlegs were banned. None of the indoor locations captured the spirit of the original.

What began as a hobby turned into a business when you and Gary opened up a Rockaway store, and then purchased Rainbow Records, a small well-known record store in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

In those days expensive records were $50 to $100. There weren’t too many records worth more than $100 back in 1979.

UK and European imports were prized back then. Brit groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Generation X, and the Sex Pistols.

The Sex Pistols were like gold.

A “God Save The Queen” single on the A&M label, from a batch supposedly destroyed after the group left the label, sold for $15,882 in 2018.

The Sex Pistols originally signed to A&M Records UK in 1977. After an intoxicated altercation in the label’s offices following the signing, the band’s contract was reportedly shredded after only 6 days. A&M Records UK had pressed 25,000 copies of “God Save The Queen” in May 1977, but today only a handful are said to exist. For that reason, it is considered one of the rarest rock records of all time.

That’s worth a minimum of $10,000. Maybe more. It goes for as much as $18,000.

Rare punk pressings and singles now sell for thousands of dollars, and the demand for classic punk artifacts is higher than ever.

Tell me about the classic punk collection of rare vinyl, concert posters, T-shirts and clothing, memorabilia, and unique industry promotional items that you acquired last year, including items from the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Fear, the Germs, the Misfits, Social Distortion, and others.

The Sex Pistols is the most valuable stuff in there.

When did you make the purchase from the local collector who wishes to remain anonymous?

Early in 2022. There’s a funny story about that. We started buying it 12 years ago. The guy brought in the first tray of 45s, letters A and B, and it was really good stuff. We said, “We definitely want the other letters when you are ready.” And early last year, 12 years later, my brother got an email saying that he was ready to sell the collection We bought everything, and it was definitely the most amazing punk collection. The good stuff, it just flew. I didn’t even have to advertise it. Word got out that we had it and people would come over and spend tens of thousands of dollars on punk 45s.

The Misfits’ single “Cough / Cool” (1977) sold at $12,000 and “Bullet” (1978) sold for $10,000. The Sex Pistols “God Save The Queen” UK  7” 45 test pressing (in cracked condition) sold for $10,000. And there were tons of $500 to $2,000 records. There were T-shirts in there, and posters.

Do you have artists seeking copies of their own recordings? So many artists lend out recordings and then don’t have a backup copy.

One of my best customers is Jimmy Page. I met him at the Olympia Record Show in London about 8 years ago. I had a Led Zeppelin concert flier on display there from Pasadena in 1969. It was up for $300 or something. I was talking to a friend of mine, and then this guy comes up. I didn’t recognize him. “Can I look at that?” I handed it to him, and then I ignored him because I didn’t know who he was. He handed it back to me and walked away. My friend said, “You know who that was don’t you?” I said, “No.” He said, “It was Jimmy Page.” Then luckily Jimmy walked to the next stand, and said to the guy there who happened to be a good friend of mine, “Who’s the guy next to you? He has some great stuff.” So my friend brought Jimmy back and introduced him to me. So we talked a bit. He came by my stall three times that weekend to look at the flier, but he didn’t want to buy it. Finally, I said, “Here Jimmy take it.” After that we sort of became friends—I don’t know about friends—but we talked, and he became a good customer.

We are buried today in albums and singles which are reissued in various special colored vinyl editions or on super duper, uber-audiophile versions. Or special web exclusive sets. Or previously unreleased concert or studio recordings by popular artists

Will there be anything again like “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” released by Wu-Tang Clan?  That was a limited single copy sold in an auction in 2015, and is considered the most expensive work of music ever sold.

The winning “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” bidder was Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who paid an unspecified amount. In 2018. Following Shkreli’s conviction for securities fraud, a federal court seized assets belonging to him, including “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” In 2021, the US Department of Justice sold it to non-fungible token collector PleasrDAO for $4 million to cover Shkreli’s debts.

Bob Dylan just did that. He just sold a recording of “Blowing in the Wind.”

Yes, a one-off re-recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” was sold by Christie’s in London in July for $1,800,354. The release, made in March 2021 with Dylan’s longtime collaborator T Bone Burnett, is the first studio recording of the song since Dylan wrote it in 1962.

There will almost certainly be further limited editions where only 5,000 copies of a recording are pressed. It’s a good way for an artist to raise money.

It’s crazy what these artists can make now by doing things like that.

Interestingly with established artists, this can be done outside of a label because the artist owns their own master, and often their own publishing.

Exactly.

I think the more pop the artist the less collectible.

Exactly right. There’s hardly anybody in easy-listening pop that is collectible except (Frank) Sinatra. Good Sinatra stuff does sell. I sold a Sinatra 8-track for $6,000 one time, but only two existed or something like that. It was a different version than the album that was released. I guess they destroyed them all. I think there like only two known copies. That was the only way that you could get that version.

What put me off buying vinyl was that sellers would pull out data sourced from Goldmine or Jerry Osborne Record Album Price Guide or from Record Collector. I’d try to buy something in a small out of the way store I knew was worth $15, and the dealer would insist it was worth $50 or $60. Well, maybe somewhere it was worth that. That may be the printed price but can they find someone to pay that price? Today, prices are also sourced from eBay, and Popsike.com.

Yes. Another thing is that a lot of stores around the country, which I think is a mistake, they price everything like its mint even though the records are VG (very good) condition which makes a huge difference.

I would imagine that there are very few people around on the level of you and your brother.

There are a couple that have been around and know what they are doing. Not too many.

Where are you originally from?

New Jersey. Bayonne and Jersey City.

How did you get to Los Angeles?

In 1967, my family moved from New Jersey to Australia which is why we have a record store in Australia. We moved there when I was 14, and in ’72 I moved back to the States by myself. I was 21. Then I traveled around the country, and a few years later the rest of my family followed me back, except for my brother Scott who was married. He stayed in Australia and in 1992, he opened a Rockaway Records store in Brisbane, which is still open.

Yes, there’s a highly touted  Rockaway Record store located in the Westfield Carindale shopping center in Queensland, in the suburb of Carindale, east of Brisbane.

It’s a separate business. We helped him get started about 30 years ago. We let him use our name, and we sold him a whole container full of records and things to help him get started. It’s his store. We don’t have much to do with it anymore.

What did your mother and father do?

Nothing important. They just wanted to get us away from New Jersey. We were getting into too much trouble. I don’t know the exact story, but they wanted to get us out of there.

Did you and Gary land in L.A. at the same time?

No. I came to L.A. in 1976 . By myself, and then a year later my mom came back with my two younger brothers, Gary and Alan just to check out the States. She decided to move back to Australia. So she left my two younger brothers with me. Alan actually lived with an uncle in Phoenix, and he had a Rockaway Records in Phoenix for about 15 years from 1983 to 1997.

You didn’t graduate college.

I started going to college in Brisbane a little bit after I graduated. I did a couple of courses. I did one semester, and that was enough for me. Before I got into the music business, I was an electronic technician. I used to fix TVs and stereos and interior equipment. I had to go to a bit of college for that. Lately, I’ve been going back to my old trade because I got in a bunch of old Beatles record players from 1964. At the moment I am reconditioning them and they sell for $4,000 to $5,000 each. So I’m glad I remember how to do it.

Do you listen to music on streaming services?

I like Apple Music. Driving around, it’s incredible.

Have you kept your personal record collection at home?

I got rid of it years ago. I only listen to music when I’m in the car now. I love driving, and when I’m driving, it’s like I’ve got a jukebox with 70 million songs on it. It’s unbelievable.

Most people can’t believe that I don’t have a record collection. I say, “Yes I do. My store is my collection.” It just changes every day. And I love buying it (records) and having them for a little while. I’ll be honest with you some of the really cool stuff that I get in I purposely overprice because I don’t want to get rid of it. Then a few months later I will get another collection, and I will lower it (the price) and sell it. I like having stuff for a while, but I can’t keep everything.

I love hearing the original versions of the Beatles albums, especially the mono UK versions. Giles Martin’s remastering of the Beatles’ catalog, most recently with the 2022 “Revolver: Special Edition” may delight some fans, but not me. Nor do I care about the Beatles’ outtakes either.

I agree with you on that. I want to hear the recordings the way that I grew up with them. I like hearing different versions one time, but I’m going to always listen to my originals.

If you have a favorite album that you have played for years, you may also love it with all of the pops, scratches, and hisses because you are used to it.

I don’t quite agree with that. My favorite record of all time is (the Beach Boys’) “Pet Sounds” and in the vinyl days I probably replaced that half a dozen times because I wore it out so quickly. I must have played it 1,000 times.

As Daniel Kindle, staff writer of the Belltower the official student newspaper of Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, Penn. wrote (Nov. 7th, 2022), “There’s a certain charm records have that digital media could never replicate. When you buy a record, it’s special because it’s real, tangible, and sincere. A record can tell you the story of its life, it might have the smell of sitting in a basement for decades or a dried-out sleeve from laying in an attic. The vinyl could be a victim of scratches from an adolescent who didn’t know any better, or brand new, still wrapped in cellophane waiting patiently for its first owner.”

What I don’t understand are completists that must have every record by a group or everything released by a label. For me, there’s good and bad recordings

I hate to say it that I think it’s crazy that some of these collectors have to have every label variation from every country around the world. It’s all about the music for me these days. I guess I’m not a collector at heart. But I love the music more than ever, and thanks to Apple Music I’m listening to more new music than I ever have. Not necessarily new, but digging back into the vaults, and hearing stuff that I’ve never heard before.

Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.

He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is a co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.

The post Interview: Memorabilia Buyer Wayne Johnson appeared first on CelebrityAccess.