Wendy Waldman:

The thing that you’re saying and that you are teaching people in a most significant way is that in today’s world, perhaps like it was back in the "old" days, it takes a village to make any real music happen-I’m not talking about that other product that’s marketed as "music," where record companies can throw millions of dollars at the advertisers, car dealers, soap makers, whatever (basically). As you astutely and patiently point out, week after week, that model has become like the dinosaurs–we’re watching the ponds dry up and the massive creatures called record companies are starting to fall to their knees and keel over.

I’m talking about real musicians in touch with real audiences, selling, as Tip O’Neill said, retail…one vote at a time, one cd at a time, one show at a time, one autograph, one town at a time. That’s what we did in the old days. WarnerBros sent us out to all the regions of the country, made us go into radio stations even and especially where the jocks DIDN’T like our music and made us go to all the warehouses where the people actually worked for the labels. We were taught to connect with the audience, with the people who worked in the trenches, and especially, to be fearless and meet with the ones who DIDN’T like us yet, who hadn’t added the record, who didn’t like "chick singers," Jews, whatever the excuse was–and to turn them around.

What an education. I opened for eveyone under the sun, from John Lee Hooker to Robert Klein, I played for 2 people in Chicago one night, and I played for 60,000 in a Rhode Island festival. I flew alone to Boston at the age of 22, rented a car, and started touring as a solo artist behind the first album. I was too young to do any of that stuff, as are most 22-year olds. I was totally unprepared for how COLD Boston was, and East Lansing Michigan, where of course the gig was cancelled and there I sat in my hotel room.

I was of course, counseled to straighten my hair, my nose, to change my music, to change my stance, and of course, I was asked by various sleezbags to "accomodate" them–
and I wasn’t one of the highest profile artists out there–imagine what some of those guys and girls dealt with…no wonder some of them have retreated behind their gates in the hills….

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hi bob,

i recently was emailed your lovely blog on heart & soul
glad someone finally blew our trumpet
i do think it was a fab record
we all got it right
ron & i in the writing, the band in performance & roy thomas baker was on the money with the production–it still sounds modern
i am still singing & still not quite good looking enough!
check out my myspace below
all the best

xxxxxxx

carol decker
www.tpau.co.uk

www.myspace.com/tpaucaroldecker

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Wendy Waldman once more:

The thing that is so amazing is that you and I have witnessed several sea changes in our lifetime–you and I can remember when the big labels were Decca., Bell, etc–then came Warner Bros and Asylum, and singer songwriters following in the wake of Dylan and the first generation of post beat musicians–
we saw all those labels vanish overnight. Remember when Mitch Miller was president of CBS?

Remember when an artist, in the 80s would be so mortified if they were without a record deal they would disappear from the scene altogether rather than face their friends and say they were unsigned, dropped whatever–

Remember all the bands that came and went, and we were told that they were surely the next big and permanent thing–they even had big hits–a large amount of those people are no longer in the business, or at any rate, playing music, and they are younger than you and me.

We could have a fun dinner table game trying to name all the acts that were trumpeted to us as the next truly hot phenom…

Remember the crash of 79, the advent of disco, of punk, of new wave, of grunge? Remember the glorious and underrated prog rock bands (you actually had to be able to play, though taste was not always required….) and the good music of the 80s that is overlooked? Remember the now missed years of southern rock–an actually interesting indigenous adaptation of a commercial medium to a regional sound? Oh, for an indigenous rock sound today, a regional identity–such as the black music that came out of the midwest and south, and how different it was from the urban black music in those days–now it’s all homogeneous, but the black musicians I knew in the south said they grew up listening to country and gospel and they found themselves sidelined by the more media saavy emerging black urban music–which actually started 15 years ago…remember real funk, where you had to be able to play and create a live groove that was mesmerizing…

Remember artists not dressing like their audiences? Remember Dylan going electric at Newport? I do. I also remember being educated by the stoned djs on fm radio across the country…teaching me that there were no formats, only cool music. What a rich history we have here, in only 50 years, but we have to understand that its roots reach way way back, complicated only by the advance of mass media and its impact on all of us.

But one thing we also understand is that being an artist or being in the music "business" these days is a moving target. You have to have a low center of gravity, keep your eyes on the horizon, not on your immediate location. You also have to not be greedy, and you have to understand that whatever you were told or sold about being a star is OVER. Also, if you have a hot job at a record company, and a slamming expensive car and a couple of alimonies to pay, and all that stuff, you’d best enjoy it now, because it is OVER. The new day is upon us.

I"m very fortunate that I never became a star–it has made for a hell of a life and I wouldn’t trade it. These days, I am mentored by people much younger than myself and I’m having a whole new life in this industry. Apparently, I’m still here…:):):) but in a way I never would have understood as a kid.

And I have been written out of the scene so many times, not to mention being told that women over 35 in the music business should just go away quietly because there’s no place for them–actually, I think I was over the hill at 27, then at 32, then 35, then of course 40, not to mention 45(!!!) and come one, 50???

I got used to it, and I kept learning that all that stuff is just bullshit, and those rules don’t apply to actual musicians. The rules do apply if you’re in that other business, the one that looks like music but is something else entirely.

My heroes: Stravinsky, Bartok, McCoy Tyner, Skip James, Dylan, some of my American Indian painter friends and idols, Keith Richards, Duke Ellington, Jobim, Joe Strummer, Ella Fitzgerald, Bach, Picasso, Jerry Brown–people who took and take the long view of life and art, the ones who are gone all worked until the day they died–Bartok died leaving 17 measures to be completed–he left a sketch I think, for a friend, put his pen down, went into the hospital and died the next day. This was the last piano concerto and I love this piece so much. These artists show me that you make art, that’s your life, that some years you might get lucky and hit one out of the park and some years will be hard–but this is your gift from, as Kinky would say, the deity of your choice, and you are meant to honor it and give back, and grow as an artist and a person until the day you are recalled….:) They don’t say the late Beethoven quartets are the best for no reason..Joe Strummer and Jobim were both doing the best work of their lives when they passed away, both deaths I still grieve.

Jerry Brown of course, reminded us early that we must lower our expectations and broaden our horizons–and he said that many many years ago..

that’s really what we’re doing–we’ve learned that lesson over and over–and actually, it makes for such a wonderful and interesting life–

People who have had to roll with the waves, who’ve opted to grow with it and see what comes next have just followed the Jerry Brown model. The limo doesn’t stop here anymore, nor should it, nor is it particularly good for you, nor does it have anything to do with the act of making art.

My real life has been far more interesting than whatever fiction I concocted in my mind about my career when I was a kid. I wouldn’t trade anything for the road I’ve gotten to travel.