500 MILES

Could be the first Peter, Paul and Mary track I ever heard. A staple at summer camp, it was emblematic of the folk boom, hell, we even had a folk TV show, “Hootenanny.”

Everybody knew the lyrics and longhaired girls strummed the tune on acoustic guitars and this could have been the first moment I realized the power of music to get the hormones flowing.

I probably heard this sung before I heard the recording. That was the power of songs back then, when they could be sung. And we did.

IF I HAD A HAMMER

A Pete Seeger/Lee Hays composition, it’s hard to overestimate the ubiquity and impact of this track. It went to number 10 and my mother bought the single and at this distance it stands out as a protest song, its lyrics are most meaningful, and even though this was only 1962, the youthquake had already begun, questioning authority and standing up for the rights of the underprivileged…we saw that on the news every day, the South was roiling, it was part of the conversation, no one ignored the issues of the day the way they do today, feeling helpless against the system. The system was just one more enemy to be confronted and defeated.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE

This was another summer camp staple, a song I knew by heart that I had no idea was on Peter, Paul and Mary’s debut. It was written by Pete Seeger, there were numerous iterations, this was the era of songs being passed around and covers.

EARLY IN THE MORNING

If you’d asked me before I started writing this I would have had a hard time attaching this track to Peter, Paul and Mary, but the truth is it’s the opening cut on their 1962 debut LP and its haunting sound always made an impression upon me. Not all of Peter, Paul and Mary’s famous cuts were covers!

THIS TRAIN

Was written by Peter and Paul and it’s my favorite on the debut LP. It sounds like a western, like people had decided to separate from the status quo and journey off on a train, were we gonna come along? That’s how it was back then, you had to decide which side you were on.

Nothing like this could be a hit today. But this will probably outlast all the hits of today.

PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON

Forget whether it was a drug song, we didn’t even contemplate that until the latter half of the decade, but this cut was such a monster it’s hard to understand its omnipresence from the vantage point of today. It made it to number 2 on the chart, but that was when if it was on the radio, everybody was aware of it. And yes, children’s entertainers glommed on to it, but the truth is, once again, it was something sung at summer camp, and probably still is! Written by Peter and the heretofore unknown and promptly forgotten Leonard Lipton.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

This Woody Guthrie song was also on Peter, Paul and Mary’s second 1962 album, “Moving.”

At this late date, Woody Guthrie is a cultural hero whose work is attached to him. But back then, he was the known writer only to those older than us.

BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND

From 1963’s “In The Wind,” this was the monster, both the track and the LP.

You’ve got to know, most people had no idea who Bob Dylan was. He and Peter, Paul and Mary shared a manager, Albert Grossman, and it was this cover that ended up shining light upon the Minnesota bard, never mind lining his pockets.

One can truly track the ignition of the mainstream protest movement back to Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of “Blowin’ In The Wind.” We had our own anthem written by a denizen of the younger generation and this song gained its power over the wind, it was in the air, everybody knew it even though to this day I don’t think I’ve ever heard it on the radio.

That’s the power of a singable song, the public kept this alive, by performing it.

TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN

Let me try to explain this. If you were Jewish you went to summer camp. There was always a counselor with a guitar. And he or she would sit by the campfire and strum and we’d all sing along.

But it wasn’t only Jewish summer camp, the same ritual occurred at Boy Scout camp too. We knew a cornucopia of songs without realizing we’d learned them. Broadway infected me, but folk music sealed the deal, made me a music fan. It was the way the songs made me feel, especially when singing along. Alive. With possibilities.

STEWBALL

Oh, Stewball was a racehorse…

Some folk songs were fast, others were slow. But we knew them all.

It was about a horse, but really it was about holding hands and singing in unison.

DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S ALL RIGHT

Neil Young still cannot get over this composition, that’s what he said on Howard Stern this week, actually, none of us ever could.

This is how we learned it, via Peter, Paul and Mary’s third album, 1963’s “In The Wind.”

Don’t think twice, it’s all right, while I sit here licking my wounds, trying to get the gumption to pick myself up and march forward, forgetting you while I still hope and pray that you come back.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A’ CHANGIN’

From 1964’s live album “In Concert,” the one that everybody bought, before music was free and you waited until an act’s popularity and influence were cemented and you could get all the hits in one place.

This collection was ubiquitous in a way their music had been previously, but no long player had been before. After all, it was still the singles era, the Beatles were just breaking, “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper” were nonexistent, never mind unfathomable.

FOR LOVIN’ ME

Written by Gordon Lightfoot long before we had any idea who he was.

This is from Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1965 collection “A Song Will Rise,” and even though it popularized this composition, the album had none of the impact of its predecessors, the British Invasion was in full swing, folk music was on the decline, and never forget acts have an arc, their popularity comes and goes, no matter how talented they might be. Sometimes it’s got nothing to do with the quality of their music, rather the scene just changes.

EARLY MORNIN’ RAIN

Another Lightfoot composition from an even more stiff follow-up LP, 1965’s “See What Tomorrow Brings.”

The band was fading fast, they no longer seemed relevant, we saw the LPs in the bin, but only diehards purchased them, they had very little cultural impact, both “See What Tomorrow Brings” and its follow-up, 1966’s “Album.”

I DIG ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC

And then came “Album 1700,” owning that designation because that was its Warner Brothers catalog number, it was literally album 1700.

This was a hit on the radio when that meant everything. It was no longer about impacting the campfire, even though the old folk hits were still sung there, but creating something indelible for Top Forty radio.

And “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” delivered.

It seemed like a cheap shot, with the Beatles reference and the modernized sound, almost akin to the classic rockers going disco at the end of the seventies, but it didn’t cross over into kitsch, “I Dig Rock and Roll Music” just sounded too good. You may not have sung it at camp, but you certainly wailed along in the car!

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

That’s right, the album came out in 1967, but the track didn’t go to number one until 1969!

Peter, Paul and Mary were back. Everybody who paid attention before anointed “Album 1700” a return. In the album era, it was one you owned and played and knew. But Top Forty didn’t pick up on it. Back in the era when it didn’t have to be on the radio to be a hit. All those Hendrix cuts you know by heart, Cream ones too, they got so little airplay. And yes, “Sunshine Of Your Love” eventually crossed over to Top Forty, and so did “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” cementing its status as probably the most famous Peter, Paul and Mary song ever.

Written by John Denver, of course.

Everybody could relate. We’d experienced love and the disconnection therefrom.

A song that has outlived its era, and that’s hard to do!

TOO MUCH OF NOTHING

Off “Album 1700″‘s follow-up, “Late Again,” which had no impact other than this, nor did its follow-up, “Peter, Paul and Mommy.” We let you come back once, we love the pull of nostalgia, after that, you stand or fall based on the quality of your work.

Yet, there were really two comeback tracks, ironically the first one cut after the second, but released before it.

Well, “Too Much Of Nothing” was not the smash of “Leaving On A Jet Plane,” but back before we knew chart numbers, when we gauged success based on a track’s impact upon us, I was infected by “Too Much Of Nothing,” it’s the one Peter, Paul and Mary cut I still yearn to hear and therefore play, never mind spin in my mind and quote.

Say hello to Valerie
Say hello to Marion
Send them all my salary
On the waters of oblivion

Actually, in the original, it’s “Vivian,” not “Marion.”

But at this point, no one had heard the original, it was part of the infamous “Basement Tapes” which did not see the light of day until 1975. Furthermore, although Dylan wrote it, Peter, Paul and Mary nailed the performance of it, their rendition was much more ear-pleasing, as was Al Kooper and Stephen Stills’s rendition of “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” on “Super Session.”

Heresy, I know. But although the lyrics are exquisite on both iterations of “Too Much Of Nothing,” the arrangement and sound on Peter, Paul and Mary’s shine so brightly you cannot help but wrap your brain around it.

And the hook is those lyrics above.

Too much of nothing… We thought about that back in 1968, when it was not about getting rich so much as contemplating one’s place in society. There was no internet, no Netflix, all we had was our music. Which we spun incessantly, which we knew by heart. And even though they seem to have been forgotten to the sands of time, even though no one seems to mention them anymore, Peter, Paul and Mary’s songs live on.

They’re the ones we know by heart.

Rhinofy-Peter, Paul and Mary Primer

The hardest challenge facing musicians today is getting people to listen to their new music. Awareness campaigns are a thing of the past. They make people know you’ve got new music, but it doesn’t make them listen to it, at most it gets them to sample a few seconds of a track. Which is fine if you’re not about the new music, if you’ve got enough old hits to power a show people want to see, but not if you’re starting out or truly want people to know what you’re up to.

1. YOU’RE A FULL TIME MUSICIAN

You practice every day, right? So why do you only drop new product every couple of years? Open the doors to the public, show your warts, reveal your personality. The key is to keep people engaged on a regular basis. This is a huge sea change, but the most notable one in the business today. YouTube is the medium of choice. Put up a video of you practicing, doing covers, works in progress. The key is to speak to your hard core fans, who will continue to talk about you to their buddies and will spread the word on anything truly great. And don’t worry if it’s not great, it just gets plowed under beneath the endless tsunami of clips posted every single day.

2. KNOW WHO YOUR FANS ARE

Selling/promoting to those who don’t care is completely worthless, it’s so 1980s. Everybody’s so busy that if they don’t have an interest in you, you won’t be able to convert them via endless publicity, which is either namby-pamby whitewash or shock value quotes. Never forget you’re selling your music, your only goal is to get people to check out and keep listening to your tunes, everything else is irrelevant. Fame won’t put asses in the seats.

3. REACH OUT TO YOUR FANS

This is what the youngsters do so well with social media, primarily Twitter and Instagram. If you’re an oldster and you want people to check out your new tunes be on social media a year in advance, a minimum of six months, revealing truth, bonding your fans to you. This is much more important and dividend paying than a story in any newspaper. The paper is one day only, tomorrow they’re flogging something else, social media when done right is an ongoing conversation.

4. HONESTY

Credit to Bono for admitting U2’s Apple mistake, but not only did Mr. Hewson apologize, he gave an explanation, he humanized himself, which made me feel warm about him and his band. Don’t let your handlers speak for you, Guy Oseary never should have taken that victory lap. You have to stand up for yourself.

“Bono apologizes for putting U2’s new album in everyone’s iCloud library”

5. HITS

This is the most important element. You have to create a track that those who know you, that those who are interested in checking you out, will hear once and need to hear again, it’s just that simple.

It’s not about what radio thinks, it’s not about what you think, it’s about what the consumer thinks, and the consumer pays your bills.

We’re all listeners, we all know what grabs us. Stop asking your friends whether they liked your new music, but how many times they listened to it. If it’s once, you’re toast, sorry.

Forget about radio, forget about filters. You know who your fans are. Do they want to hear the new track again and again?

Taylor Swift has embraced this paradigm, realizing how tough today’s landscape has become, unfortunately she has gone lowest common denominator with “Shake If Off.” You too can do this, if you know Max Martin and the usual suspects, but that does not mean you cannot do it yourself, that you cannot shoot higher. But we can only listen to one song at one time so what you cut has to have the catchiness of “Shake It Off.”

No bitching. This is the story of all media today. Check out the movie business, it’s either a blockbuster or it’s a stiff. If you’re happy with a stiff, be my guest, but you’re not allowed to complain you’ve got no audience, that no one cares.

6. ALBUMS

Stop thinking about them and stop making them. You start with the hit, if you haven’t got one, keep trying to make one. Without one, you’re sunk. If you have a hit, people will want to hear more of your music, so then you can build around the hit. You can release four other tracks that are ear-pleasing but might only be listened to by fans. Then you need another hit. And know in the streaming universe, the album makes no sense. The CD allowed shuffling, the ability to play only the songs you wanted to hear from the collection, streaming doesn’t even force you to buy the LP to begin with! Don’t overload your audience on Spotify and its ilk, it’s too confusing when someone goes to check you out. In other words, put a plethora of material on YouTube, but only the limited, authorized stuff on Spotify. You’re not making albums, you’re creating a body of work. Listeners don’t care if you cut it yesterday or a year ago, or even five years ago. And to force people to wait for years to overwhelm them with product is a mistake.

7. TELEVISION/EVENTS

I’m not a big Foo Fighters fan but their HBO show is a masterstroke, going with the true Tiffany network to showcase excellence without commercialism. The same show is a stiff on another network, the Foo Fighters are piggybacking on HBO’s cred. And with no ads, HBO is the antithesis of the modern world. People hate the endless selling and commercialism. It burnishes your image to avoid it. But, once again, you must have hits. And, once again, a hit is something that many people want to hear over and over again, it doesn’t matter if it’s played on the radio or not.

8. GENRE-HOPPING

The rappers have been doing it forever, dropping in on pop songs. Today’s country is yesterday’s rock and roll. Want to expand your audience? Play with today’s country stars, who can play, and likely are fans of your material. We’re all in it together, and only the biggest of stars can go it alone.

9. NO SHORTCUTS

They leave the audience with a bad taste in their mouth. If your face is everywhere, if you force your music upon them, backlash will begin. Money and connections will get you press, but the truth is in today’s music world it might be working against you. Used to be the press was tied in with radio and MTV, which everybody listened to and watched. Today, your music can be completely ignored. When your face appears in a non-genre-specific publication, trolling for fans, the readers laugh and make fun of you.

10. TAKE A JOKE

We live in hater culture. If you’re going to respond at all, have not only a sense of humility, but a sense of humor. There’s no need to immediately apologize, then you look like one of the TV drug addict nitwits. Stand your ground, but be three-dimensional, wink your eye.

Everywhere I go I quiz people on the new releases. Consensus is the Thom Yorke album is already over. The inane press release wherein they said there were a million downloads, was laughable, they had very few PAID downloads. This is the worst case example, where the press trumps the music.

At least U2 got to perform their song at Apple’s shindig. If only it had been a hit. It was very good, but you never needed to hear it again.

As for Tom Petty, I’m a huge fan, but when he appeared in every publication known to man and exuded grumpiness in the process and came out with an album without one repeatable track, it was just sad.

That’s right, your A&R man said he couldn’t hear a single.

But today your A&R man is your audience. And it’s not their job to listen to your new music. And chances are there is no radio single…radio, radio that counts, doesn’t play your music, your single is for your fans. And your single is a repeatable track. Because no one’s got time for less than great.

And we’re constantly in search of great, which is how Lorde can come out of nowhere, but now, more than ever, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, but what you’ve done for us lately.

Once upon a time television was like radio, something you received over the air for free via an antenna. But in the eighties, TV moved to a subscription model, people paid for cable, for a better picture and more and better programming. So, customers became inured to paying a subscription fee, every month, in perpetuity. And they still do, despite all the hoopla about cord-cutting, the truth is you’re paying for access, whether it be with the cable company of yore or via FiOS or LTE wireless, all of which you pay for each and every month.

And then came home video. Initially an ownership market, it didn’t burgeon until it was turned into a rental market, which flourished until it became a dirt cheap ownership market which threw off tons of cash, then Netflix brought back rental and then went streaming and the cash cow ownership model crashed.

Music was always about an ownership model. And this was resented by consumers when DVD prices dove down to nothing and included all the music on the CD for a lower price than the music only disc.

And then the internet hit. All media were unprepared. And music was affected first, because of the small size of the files. But TV learned and created Hulu and Netflix flipped its model to streaming, which, if you remember, customers hated, but have now embraced. Furthermore, streaming is cheaper than all its predecessors, and it’s all you can eat.

In music, we stayed with the sales model deep into the twenty first century, way too late, with the iTunes Store. We broke out the single from the album, Steve Jobs tried to keep the prices low, but the labels lobbied for an increase, which they finally got, driving their enterprise right towards the cliff when YouTube emerged.

There was no viable alternative. Yes, Rhapsody existed, but most people had no idea what it was, and unlike in TV/movies, people were not in the habit of paying a subscription fee, which they’d already been doing in visual media for decades. So with no viable alternative, the youngsters, who are cheap and have loads of time, flocked to YouTube, which the rights holders eventually monetized.

Now visual creators and actors get paid in the new streaming era, just not much. The rights holders bundle their products and license them to distributors. Actors and writers agitate, even go on strike, but it’s seen as a battle between them and the studios, not them and the distributors.

But it’s different in music. Because despite hefty advances, artists got royalties, which were frequently a laugh in visual entertainment, owed, but not paid.

Now visual entertainment is screwed because it believes it’s ahead of the game, believes it’s got it all figured out, when the truth is you need multiple subscriptions to get everything you want and as a result piracy is rampant. In music, one subscription will get you everything, so piracy has tanked. But in both worlds, streaming rules. It’s just that ownership fell by the wayside eons ago in visual entertainment.

Also, visual entertainment is still holding on to windows, it’s still trying to figure out how to replace DVD sales revenue, never mind make its nut via streaming income, whereas windows are passe in music, but the reduction in income…creators are still bitching about that.

But consumers don’t care. They’re in heaven. And they’re never going back to the old ways.

So where does this leave musicians?

Believing that the barrier to entry is so low, the ability to get your stuff streamed so easy, that they should all be millionaires, not realizing consumers have very little time and infinite choice and they probably won’t choose you but the hits.

Whereas in visual entertainment, the hobbyist doesn’t believe his productions should be offered on Hulu or Netflix. And doesn’t believe he should make bank on YouTube unless he’s got millions of plays.

The song remains the same. If you’re popular, if you’ve got leverage, you’ll make money. Actually, popularity now rules because of the suddenly seen metrics, no one with 1,000 plays is bitching they’re not getting rich off of YouTube, but somehow people with the same number of streams on Spotify believe they should.

So what we’ve learned is that access has won. And in this case, TV preceded music by nearly two decades, it trained people to pay, every month. Furthermore, the public was weaned from ownership by insanely low rentals, like Redbox, and nearly as cheap streaming. This is the future of music too.

So music has to train its audience to pay. It was blindsided by YouTube, which has become the music destination of choice. Blame the labels, who didn’t license Spotify, et al, earlier, forcing Spotify and its clones to offer free subscriptions just to get people to try them out, because YouTube is free.

But movies were never free. There did not need to be a free Netflix. The only thing the visual purveyors are fighting is piracy, which is incredibly significant, but convenience is helping them,  because you can watch so much instantly, at your fingertips, on all your devices.

Yet in music, the makers abhor convenience. They trumpet CDs and vinyl. They insist people listen to the album when they don’t want to. They’re pushing the ball uphill, they’re fighting their own best interests.

So get with the program. Know that streaming has won and the goal is to get everybody to pay for a subscription and that winners will be paid handsomely and losers should just thank their lucky stars that they’re able to play.

And, now that visual entertainment is everywhere, along with video games, it’s incumbent upon musicians to make art that trumps its competitors, that is better than “Homeland” and the rest of the cable shows.

That’s quite a challenge, but I know you’re up to it.

Some of you.

When you think you know where the road will go
There’s another mystery around the bend

Every night I lie on the floor and listen to Deezer Elite and my old favorites come alive.

It’s funny, it doesn’t work during the day, I’m nocturnal anyway, I’d prefer to live in darkness, when the world slows down and no one contacts me and I can let my mind drift.

I used to wake up at noon. That window from 10 PM until 4 AM was my own. It made it very hard to book appointments, with half the day scraped away, but I now realize it made sense, that it was me, because I’m happiest in my own cocoon.

I do thrive in crowds, when I don’t sink. Used to be I talked prodigiously, now I usually listen. I’m fearful of alienating others, I marvel at their ability to speak uninhibited, demonstrating their flaws without realizing it. I used to be one of them, but years of psychotherapy changed me. Every encounter is a puzzle, one I enjoy most when others involve me, when I feel inspired and unleash a torrent of words that cannot be stopped. But that rarely happens. I get worn out engaging, I look forward to retreating. But happiness comes from being a member of the group, so there’s the conundrum.

Look into the western sky

Hope. That was what leaving the east coast was all about. Shedding skin for big sky country. But the truth is you do take your problems everywhere, along with your music.

But people are different as you move through the time zones, they speak the same language, but they emphasize different mores. On the east coast education is important, everybody’s checking their spot in the pecking order. Further west it’s more about personal fulfillment, and I like that.

So I’m on the floor in darkness, with e-mail slowed to a crawl, before Europe wakes up, and I push through all my old favorites to see how they sound in high quality, what will be revealed.

And what was revealed Monday night was the above lyric. To the point where it haunted me all day Tuesday.

You get to the point where you think you have the answers, that you think you’ve got it figured out, and then you’re surprised.

It does require engagement. You must leave your house, however daunting that might be, but when you get on the road, despite maps being on your smartphone, you might have an idea of where you’re going, but that’s not necessarily where you’ll end up.

Just like listening to a track. I’ve heard Wendy Waldman’s “Cast Your Soul” oodles of times. It’s always been the sound that got to me. And then this lyric jumped out.

Ain’t that how it always is. When you think you know everything, it turns out you don’t.

And that’s what we like about life.

So, cast your soul upon the wind. Be human. Take chances. Know fame is an illusion. And despite being so connected electronically we’re really all alone. Own this, and know the job of art is to reach out and make us feel part of humanity, the link between music maker and listener is the one that keeps on giving, inciting us while being insightful, riding shotgun as we encounter the vagaries of life, which thrill us but scare us all at the same time.

“Cast Your Soul”