Did you listen to James Taylor on Howard Stern?

Despite all the press about the drought, it actually rained in L.A. on Thursday and Friday. Which is really quite strange. This came a couple of weeks after summer weather. Even worse, rain is like snow in L.A. It loosens the oil in the highway and you slip and slide and people get freaked out and traffic is slow and it demands concentration and you end up in your own cocoon, listening to the radio.

And in my car I heard JT tell the story of “Carolina In My Mind.”

I loved that record. The original opener on the Apple album. I bought it, actually, it was a present from my sister now that I remember, it was big up at BU, she gave it to me for my birthday. And for a month straight I’d drop the needle before school, to put me in a good mood as I got dressed.

It worked. And even though James is not enamored of that version, it’s always been my favorite. And I loved his brother Livingston’s “Carolina Day” from his Capricorn LP, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story is “Carolina” was written during a break in recording his first album. He went with Joel Zoss (I LOVE “Too Long At The Fair”!) to Formentera and one night he went with Karen to Ibiza for a party and they missed the last boat back and while she slept on a bench he wrote the song.

Whew!

And to discover new facts about an old hand so far down the line is fascinating, but just as intriguing was putting the facts together, how JT made it.

But I’m driving in Beverly Glen, actually, I’m stuck in traffic in Beverly Glen, and I’m thinking that’s how all the great work is done, on a whim, when the stars align and you’re suddenly in the mood. Sure, you can get a group of writers together in Nashville and eke it out but it’s not the same thing. Just the same way a prepubescent’s songs don’t last because they have nothing to say.

Yes, JT made it at a relatively young age, but he’d LIVED!

Met Kootch on the Vineyard.

Been to Milton Academy.

Went into the mental institution.

Got hooked on drugs.

Met the Beatles! They even signed him!

There’s a lot of stories there. And that’s how the best art is created, through experience. Because when you lay that experience down you can feel the humanity, and we can all connect, and that’s what we’re looking to do, feel so not alone in this crazy world of ours.

And it is a crazy world, but so different from the sixties.

In the sixties the Vineyard was not upscale, there were no billionaires. And you could get lost in the Balearics. Sure, you could make an ultra-expensive long distance phone call, but you couldn’t e-mail or text, you were out on your own, having an experience.

And this is what the old farts can’t get over, that the experience is not the same. You had to pay your dues to get a record deal, often more than one, in order to break through. You just couldn’t declare yourself an artist and put your music up on YouTube. And it’s this experience that informed our music, that made it great.

JT played with Kootch in the Flying Machine as the house band in the Village. Do anything long enough and you become comfortable with it and can then spread your wings and innovate. But without this time…

Not that today’s world is not scintillating and invigorating, but the emphasis is on tech as opposed to music. Tech gives us tools to communicate, and we love this. But it also gives us the ability to create cheaply and insist everybody pay attention, even though we are not worthy.

James Taylor is worthy.

I saw him last summer and I cringed. He had a crack band but he’d turned into a crooner. But on Howard’s show it was just him and his guitar. To say it was authentic is nearly an understatement. You’re touched, tears come to your eyes, you’re thrilled to be in the presence of such greatness, you remember what once was, when you first heard these records.

The Berkshires used to be covered with snow on the first of December.

But now with global warming, they rarely are.

Our world has changed.

But the songs remain.

Listen.

“The Howard Stern Show – James Taylor Full Interview (May 12, 2015)”

Jett Schmett. Girls wanted to be PAT BENATAR!

The story is always the same, if you’re good-looking you get no credit.

Now I’m not saying we need to have sympathy for the beautiful, although being good-looking is a sentence, something you think you want but don’t really, but the truth is if you’re an attractive female singer you get no respect from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Waiting decades to induct Linda Ronstadt? And then there’s Joan Jett, member of a failed band overhyped by the dearly departed Kim Fowley, who ultimately had a couple of hits, and she’s lionized and Benatar’s been forgotten… IT’S UNFAIR!

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

Fire away!

I start here, because it’s where Pat Benatar became a star, known by EVERYBODY!

You come on with a ‘come on’
You don’t fight fair
But that’s okay, see if I care

ATTITUDE! That’s what Pat Benatar was delivering. Talk about girl power, forget the punks from later decades, it’s Benatar who empowered young women. But she doesn’t get credit because she wasn’t unattractive with a bad voice singing about her plight. Rather, Benatar had power, she owned her life, and people just couldn’t get enough of her.

I NEED A LOVER

It’s really all about the first album, produced by Peter Coleman and Mike Chapman at MCA Whitney studios. It had so many good tracks I had to run out and buy it. And the key cut was this, a cover of a John Mellencamp song before the man from Indiana became a star.

And if you go back and listen to Cougar’s version (that’s what he was called back then), you’ll see it has magic but Benatar’s version is a triumph. The thrown-off attitude with an element of sincerity, it’s the definition of “infectious.”

And isn’t that what we all need, A LOVER WHO WON’T DRIVE US CRAZY?!

HEARTBREAKER

You’re a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don’t you mess around with me

With enough balls for the notoriously male-centric AOR radio to embrace, it was this that led off the album and cemented Benatar’s reputation, demonstrated that she’d arrived.

You’re the right kind of sinner
To release my inner fantasy

Males were Benatar’s initial fans. They wanted more of…THIS!

WE LIVE FOR LOVE

Written by Benatar’s guitar player and eventual husband Neil Giraldo, this is the track that made me buy the album. “We Live For Love” was a girl group-styled track by someone with the pipes to hit all the notes. We all have a soft spot for well-done pop, catchy songs that have us tapping our toe that make us feel good. “We Live For Love” may not have burned up the radio, but it ignited me!

IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO LOVE ME

A hit for Smokie overseas, a band that never made it in the U.S., it’s the vocal, especially in the chorus, that puts this over the top.

So if you think you know how to love me
And you think you know what I need
And if you really, really want me to stay
You’ve got to lead the way

Hey, I can learn something from this!

YOU BETTER RUN

The debut announced Benatar’s arrival, it was a hit, but it was her second, “Crimes Of Passion,” that made her a star.

Of course, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was the monster. But this cover of the Young Rascals’ hit was nearly as ubiquitous.

A great song is a great song, never forget it!

HELL IS FOR CHILDREN

The press hook was child abuse, just like Little Big Town is employing lesbianism to break “Girl Crush,” but the truth is both records stand on their own, the press is irrelevant. This is a dark, hypnotic track no matter what it’s about.

TREAT ME RIGHT

Like its predecessor, “Crimes Of Passion” began with a killer, a tear that announced Benatar meant business.

This was a radio staple, and deservedly so.

Furthermore, Benatar’s initial album was released in 1979, pre-MTV. And even though “Crimes Of Passion” came out in August 1980, a full year before the launch of the music video service, “You Better Run” was the second video MTV aired. And Benatar was all over the channel. Because Chrysalis believed in video, they had the clips, and, needless to say, Pat Benatar was photogenic.

FIRE AND ICE

There was no national radio station, not everybody had been subjected to Pat Benatar, but now that MTV was here and growing Benatar’s act could be seen throughout the land and despite the albums declining in quality, a hit like “Fire And Ice” could suddenly be bigger than anything ever before.

Insiders realized this immediately. Duran Duran’s expensive videos got all the press a few years later, but anybody with a clip on MTV suddenly saw record sales jump, they could play to a full house nearly everywhere, it was a new golden era.

Ooh, you’re givin’ me the fever tonight

It was the dynamics that put “Fire And Ice” over the top. It started off so quiet and intimate and meaningful and then…

Fire and ice, you come on like a flame
Then you turn a cold shoulder
Fire and ice, I wanna give you my love
But you’ll just take a little piece of my heart
You’ll just tear it apart

But it gets even better. There’s a bridge!

So you think you’ve got it all figured out
You’re an expert in the field without a doubt
But I know your methods inside and out
And I won’t be taken in by fire and ice

And then a screaming guitar solo.

Produced by Keith Olsen and Neil Giraldo, “Fire And Ice” is a tour-de-force!

PROMISES IN THE DARK

Starting off quietly and then exploding, this Giraldo and Benatar cowrite opened up the album “Precious Time” on a high note. Benatar was playing by the rules, the rules of rock and commercialism, give us your best shot FIRST!

SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT

We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby take my hand, it’ll be all right
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end

Gives me chills.

With Peter Coleman back in the picture, “Shadows Of The Night” is an everything but the kitchen sink production, there’s no restraint after the a cappella intro, just more, more, MORE! Listen to those pounding drums, that army of guitars!

And you remember the video, with Pat as a factory worker who ultimately flies off to save the world… It was 1982, performance clips were history, and Benatar was leading the way. “Shadows Of The Night” got incessant video play, Pat was on a victory lap nonpareil, back when all the excitement was in music, when even oldsters tuned in to MTV to see what was going on.

It was 1982, teen movies still moved the needle, “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” included a Benatar reference, Pat was a cultural icon!

LITTLE TOO LATE

Just works. Listen.

LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD

A studio track tacked on to a live album, this was the video that proved Pat Benatar couldn’t dance.

Well, it wasn’t that she was bad, but just that she wasn’t great, she was executing scripted choreography whilst concentrating so hard that she lost all soul.

Maybe this is where we started to go wrong, when singing was no longer enough.

But having said that, “Love Is A Battlefield” was a gigantic hit, the clip was an MTV staple, and while girls were perfecting the moves, boys couldn’t get enough of Pat shaking it.

WE BELONG

The last hurrah. There were further chart records, like “Invincible,” “Sex As A Weapon” and “All Fired Up,” but by that point Benatar was running on fumes, she’d strayed from what she once was, a simple hit machine, the material was not as consistent, and the audience knew it and moved on…to hair bands, to Michael Jackson and ultimately rap.

But she had a good long run.

And she’s still out there doing it, the female Bon Jovi. Who had help writing his hits too.

Then again, we never quite knew who Pat Benatar was. This was pre-internet, we knew about her vocal training, but she kept giving props to her husband/guitarist when she was the star and then they both kinda faded away…

And I can’t say their music has radiated.

But if you were there then, if you know these tracks, you know how big Benatar was. Not only big enough to influence women’s looks in “Fast Times,” but so big that when you hear her music you’re brought right back to then.

And isn’t that what music does best? Mark our lives, remind us of who we once were and ultimately still want to be?

Rhinofy-Pat Benatar Primer

WTF is Rdio?

No one even knew what Spotify was until Tay-Tay decided to dump on it. But now this also-ran streaming service executes a publicity campaign to get insiders to write about their discount service and somebody thinks this is gonna move the needle? HILARIOUS!

Let’s start with tech. You’re either a winner or you’re not, a player or you’re not. Either everybody knows about you or they don’t. There’s one Facebook. One Google. One Amazon. And one Spotify. And if you think Apple’s gonna enter the sphere and decimate the Swedish streaming company overnight, you probably still subscribe to Beats, a failed service if there ever was one. Come on, Dr. Dre and his cronies could get everybody to buy crappy headphones for hundreds of dollars but couldn’t get these same people to lay down ten bucks a month?

OF COURSE NOT! Because you’re competing with free. And YouTube is free, never mind piracy, and you’ve got to convince people streaming is worth paying for. And you don’t do this by saying so.

Apple has everybody’s credit card number and a blue chip brand, but believe me, if Sprint were free, nobody would subscribe to Verizon, no matter how much better it might be. Jimmy failed already, the brass at Apple is clueless, otherwise how to explain the U2 debacle, and just because Iovine got everybody in the biz to sign an NDA and keeps telling them he’ll promote their records, this means NOTHING to the end consumer.

As for exclusives… I won’t waste my time talking about Tidal.

So what exactly is the Rdio offer?

I get Pandora and downloads for more?

But I already don’t pay for Pandora. And what do you mean by “downloads?” What you really mean is streams can live on my handset until I stop paying. But people don’t know that. Hell, they don’t even know streams can download/live on handsets whatsoever. My inbox is filled with people bitching that they can’t afford the data charges for a streaming service, not knowing that you can sync via wi-fi and it’s just like ownership, assuming you pay every month.

So you’ve got an incomprehensible offer to people who don’t care. That’s a winner, right there.

And speaking of incomprehensible, the bozos in the music business don’t realize Spotify’s free tier is crippled on mobile. You can’t just pick and choose what you want to hear. But they don’t know this because they don’t do the research, they just knee-jerk react against free. The reason Daniel Ek says free mobile converts people to pay is because they want the shackles removed. Try it out, sign up for free Spotify mobile and tell me how much you love the service. As for mobile, we just endured days of stories about how mobile is king, explaining the Verizon/AOL deal, how the switch is happening so fast, yet the music business is still worried about the desktop, and CDs and iTunes downloads. Drives me crazy.

What we’ve learned in the internet era is the consumer is king. People decide what they want, they’re not dictated to by purveyors.

Second, comprehensibility is everything. If I can’t understand it, I don’t want it. Even Apple is dealing with this issue with the Watch, people want to know what it’s FOR, and the Cupertino company has had a hard time explaining this. Sure, early adopters are lining up to buy it, but after that…

Streaming has already won. YouTube has proven this.

Spotify has put a dent in piracy wherever it operates. And this is a good thing.

Jimmy Iovine would like to do an end run around reality by forcing free to go away. Even the government is not gonna let that happen, never mind Steven Cooper. And the reason Jimmy wants that is not to please Lucian Grainge or other execs, but because it’s good for HIS business. If there’s no free, suddenly Apple competes with Spotify on a nearly equal level. Everybody’s fighting for that same ten bucks a month. Most people still don’t pay for streaming music, and if Apple can move the starting line to where Spotify is it has a better chance of winning.

Price does matter. But if you think price is everything, you’re probably buying an Android watch, which they’re giving away.

You’ve got to sell what people want.

And so far, the music industry has done a lousy job of convincing people they need to pay for a subscription to a streaming music service. First and foremost they’d like them to buy an album on CD, because they make the most money that way, even though CD drives have gone the way of cassette players. Then they’d like people to buy downloads as if everybody had a handset with 128 gigs of storage, as if the MP3/AAC was forever. Streaming is an afterthought. Meanwhile, everybody in the biz keeps bitching about streaming revenues. Do you want people to pay for something that you keep saying sucks?

And is this really the big issue, how much record companies and artists get paid for recorded music? Haven’t we moved to a more holistic view, where you get revenue from multiple sources and the come-on is the music?

Don’t get me wrong, I want people to pay for music, I want revenues to grow. I think streaming music is fantastic, I’m a big user. But if you want everybody else to come along and grow revenues you’ve got to have a united front promoting a properly-priced, well-rounded, comprehensible offer.

And Rdio at $3.99 is certainly not it.

The greatest record company in the history of the music business was Warner/Reprise.

Don’t confuse today’s enterprise with yesteryear’s.

And as great as Ahmet Ertegun was, Atlantic was no match for its west coast counterpart.

Warner/Reprise had SOUL!

Let me take you back, to an era when music drove the culture, when young ‘uns were addicted to the radio and could sing every song on the hit parade, whether they liked it or not. This lasted until about 1968, when underground FM got started, and that’s where Warner/Reprise thrived.

It was Jimi Hendrix. It was the Grateful Dead.

It was Joni Mitchell and Neil Young when he was a nobody from up north from a failed band.

Warner let you do what you wanted, it was all about the bands and their music.

But the image came from Stan Cornyn.

He wrote a book, but today everything lives online, and there’s no shrine to the man…who made Warner/Reprise hip, who made youngsters all over this great country of ours believers. We wanted to go to 3300 Warner Boulevard not because of Mo and Joe so much as the culture, we wanted to be where the irreverent people who knew no rules were changing our society day by day.

That’s what Stan Cornyn did.

I remember running into his trade publication “Circular” at a record store. I wrote a note to the company asking to be put on the distribution list. I was for a while. It was like getting a note from the Pope, after all, music was my religion.

Not that Cornyn was famous. Other than the occasional credit. It was all done in service of the company, of the artists.

And now Stan Cornyn is dead.

He lived to 81, that’s a good long life.

And if he were here, I don’t think he’d be asking for either praise or remembrance, but my inbox is filling up with testimonials from those who knew him.

Warner/Reprise stood for something. And we knew it because Stan Cornyn said so. He was head of “creative services,” whatever that was, he was the person who rallied the like-minded troops into changing our country.

You can read his book:

“Exploding: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group”

Or you can just know that people make a difference. That life is a team effort. And that it’s our wackiest, outside the box thinkers, those who prod tradition, who take risks, who change the world.

Stan did.

 

Bob

One of your “Old Farts” died this week. Stan Cornyn had an enormous impact on Warner Bros/Reprise Records during the years when we became a powerhouse regarded as Super Hip.

He changed some of the old fashioned marketing, advertising presentations and we became the envy of much of the industry.

Contrary to your oft repeated indictments of the above mentioned Old Farts we had a group of people who loved the music, went with our own tastes and methods.

In fact it was the Erteguns, Clive, Mo and myself and a few others who shook off the Corporations and went our way and built a business. While we all did well financially no billionaires arrived.

You should recognize Stan in some way. He was the ultimate image maker and no one came close to his style, content and approach

Joe Smith