I’m a student of the game. I’m less interested in the achievements of the stars than how they got there.

David Foster is an opportunist, in this movie he says so.

Funny, I didn’t see any hype for this documentary, but my inbox started to fill up with people asking if I’d seen it, what my opinion on it was, so I decided to dive in.

One thing you’ve got to know about David Foster, he’s insane.

I don’t mean certifiable. But those on the bleeding edge are not regular people, there’s something different about them, and when you interact with them you can tell. Foster’s brain moves a mile a minute, and he’s confident in his opinions. He’s always a mile or two or ten down the road, you’re discussing the present, and he’s already living in the future.

Fosters don’t work for the Fortune 500. They would never fit in. If you want to work for the man, the number one criterion is the ability to get along, to be a member of the group, to be part of the team, whereas with creative people it’s all about the “I.” Sure, other people aid in your success, in the field, in the studio, but then there are people like Todd Rundgren, fully capable of creating the tracks all by himself – writing, singing, playing, producing and engineering, and ending up with hits. And Todd isn’t the easiest going guy either. You see to make it as a musician, to be a star, you’ve got to be an egomaniac. You’ve got to think you can push people out of the way on your rise to the top. And in Foster’s era, in the big studio era, when there were hired gun musicians, the inner circle was made up of only a handful of players. Well, maybe two handfuls. But all those records you heard on the radio, by all those different acts? Oftentimes it was the same damn players. Meaning it was very hard to break into that circle. It took chops, perseverance and relationships. The music business is all about relationships. Doesn’t matter how good you are, if you don’t know anybody, you won’t get ahead.

So…

Foster is a prodigy. Most of these people are. With perfect pitch. With skills far beyond those in their neighborhood, even in their state. But that doesn’t mean they succeed in the music business. Anybody can get on the radio, anybody can get on TV, you enjoy it the first time but you soon set your sights higher, you want to be on EVERYBODY’S radio, EVERYBODY’S TV, you want to be part of the firmament, you want to SUSTAIN!

And you can come from nowhere.

But you’ve got to go somewhere.

Foster leaves British Columbia to go to London with his band. They don’t succeed. Everyone leaves but him. That’s a hard job, keeping the band together. Read the “Washington Post” article on Midland:

The Return of Cheatin’ Songs

Scott Borchetta is reluctant to sign bands, BECAUSE THEY BREAK UP! And if you sift through the leaves you’ll find that almost everyone in Hollywood started off in a band that broke up, there are just a few survivors, who need it.

And Foster doesn’t like New York. Greatest city in the world, but not for him. He feels claustrophobic. When Foster came up, the music business was centered in L.A., it’s centered in L.A. once again, if you want to make it you should come here, you don’t absolutely need to come here, but you want to make it easy on yourself. Living in L.A. is easy. It’s a giant suburb, if you can’t afford the rent you just move further out, you battle traffic, but that’s the only element that’s not on your side, there’s no issue of weather, it’s easier to survive.

So, Foster hangs out in London for a year, the loneliest one of his life, and then comes back to Canada. I know, I know, today you’ve got all these instant successes. But the truth is those who last paid tons of dues before you knew their names, with more failures than successes, until things finally clicked.

So Foster leads the “Rocky Horror Show” band, the musical played at the Roxy forever, and he works the relationships.

He’s at a session with Barbra Streisand and she’s not feeling it and calls for a break, but he sits at the piano, playing, knowing she’s listening in the control room, leading to one of his big breaks.

You’ve got to see the holes and take advantage of them. You’ve got to be pushy without appearing pushy, at least until you’ve succeeded, and then you can alternately be pushy or the friendliest person in the room, after all, you’ve got nothing left to prove.

But Foster always has something left to prove. So, he’s in the studio 24/7, year after year.

The star of this movie is Katharine McPhee, the “American Idol” runner-up who has sustained a career. She and David are now married, and she won’t let him skate. Foster says he’s a runner, he admits it. Foster delineates so many of his flaws in this pic, which undercuts the hagiography, especially when they cut to Celine Dion and Michael Buble. This was a guy who wanted it and once he got there believed in himself and wouldn’t let go, he didn’t compromise, the making of the Chicago records is the highlight of the musical interludes. Band separates from Columbia, they’re down on their luck, and then Irving hooks them up with Foster who promptly says their material sucks, gets them to write new stuff, along with himself, he also plays on the record, and the end result…GIGANTIC HITS! Peter Cetera sides with Foster and leaves the band and the guys in Chicago have never recovered from the whole experience. Foster changed their sound, there were not horns, they can’t get over it. Foster understands, but also says he rejuvenated their career and they’ve been touring on those hits he produced for decades since. A producer can be a chameleon, the act is loath to change its identity, it’s all they’ve got, if they fail, it’s toodles, whereas the producer can always get a new gig.

So, he’s married five times. When it gets bad, he moves on. Leaving carnage in his wake. Some of this trauma kids never get over, even if they claim otherwise down the line, I’m always stunned when constantly touring musicians have a passel of kids, they hardly see them, and oftentimes they break up with their mother and…

McPhee has Foster’s number. She talks about flying all over the world, to hang with Foster’s rich and famous friends, but then says they’ve got no clue who he really is. BINGO!

You get in this rarefied air and… There’s just no reality. Everybody’s being so fabulous, with a mask on, being fake, that you can’t connect. But you’ve worked so hard to earn this, to be part of the inner circle, and you don’t want to admit it’s phony, because then you must question your entire journey.

McPhee insists David discuss, argue, at length, reveal his feelings, she wants to get down to the real nitty-gritty. Something no prior woman has been able to do, never mind a man. Yes, you can have all the success in the world, but that does not make you happy, not on a sustained basis. It’s good to be #1, but that never lasts.

And we’ve got blowhards like Clive Davis polishing their resume, trying to ensure he lasts when he never will, all these acts saying the tracks they’ve done with Foster will last forever when they won’t either. Because the kind of stuff Foster does lacks an edge. The greatest stuff comes from explorers, willing to do something different. Oh, of course we need journeymen, fix-it people, but to become a legend…

Foster wants to be a legend. He can’t avoid the spotlight. He admits that his reality show appearances were bad decisions, jokes, but when you work behind the board all those years, you hunger for the spotlight, you’ve got the money and the credits, but not the fame, the acts have all the fame, even if they are now broke.

But Foster can’t give up. He says he’s retired yet he works all the time. Because he needs to be in the game, trying to ascend the ladder, which brings us to Broadway.

Why the Great White Way bookends this documentary I’ve got no idea. Since Foster has not had any success there, just a desire to triumph. But he does admit Broadway is a collaborative effort, when Foster is a dictator. Foster knows what’s right, he’s trying to achieve it, you don’t want to get in his way, you just want to say yes.

But is he George Martin, the Beatles, Quincy Jones? No. Because his big hit with Whitney Houston was not written by her and her identity was so all over the place that it’s hard to square the singer with the song.

Not that I’m trying to tear down hits. But Whitney Houston is a creature of publicity. She’s only lasted this long because she died. She had a big hit movie, some hits in the MTV era, so what? We’re looking for something a bit more titillating, with a bit more of the aforementioned edge. Same deal with Celine Dion. Yes, Foster recognized a star, but all she is is a voice. Who appeals to Middle America. But the British Invasion happened, the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper” and what came before became irrelevant. The Great American Songbook? Rod Stewart sang it, and it almost killed his career, his true fans had no interest.

So, there are two music businesses. One feeding the hoi polloi, casual fans, and another feeding the diehards, whose lives were saved by rock and roll and hip-hop, who see the singer not as an entertainer, but a vessel of God, someone who can channel truth, whose every word they hang on. The Beatles fostered the latter. Clive Davis fostered the former. The Beatles need no publicity, Clive cannot keep tooting his horn, you don’t need to do this when you’ve truly got it.

And Foster has it.

You see when you have big success, people notice, and they call, and want to use you. And as long as you continue to succeed, you can write your own ticket. It’s a hard business to get into, and a hard business to stay in, so you try to surf the wave as long as you can. And Foster’s had a very long ride, almost longer than anybody from his era. It’s just that…he’s making pop music, and pop music is inherently disposable. Which is maybe why he wants to go to Broadway, where he can prove he’s more than a studio rat, convince the naysayers in New York, when the truth is who cares what those arbiters of culture have to say anyway, isn’t that why we live in Southern California?

I’m judging Foster on an absolute scale. Because the documentary portrays him as a titan and that’s the world Foster considers himself a player in.

David Foster took a band on life support, on a new label, the Tubes, and gave them success…and broke up the band in the process, they didn’t see themselves as that act.

He made two stiff albums with Hall & Oates before that, and once the duo jettisoned Foster and produced themselves they instantly emerged with gigantic hits, like “You Make My Dreams” and “Kiss on My List.”

If you know who you are, you don’t want Foster.

But if you don’t… Foster can come along and deliver.

So who is the real David Foster?

Despite all the self-denigration evidenced in this documentary, I’m still not sure. What does he need? Hits, acclaim, money?

Well, if I think about it, what David Foster truly wants is love. He got it from his supportive mother, and he’s been looking for it from everybody else forever since. So he’s a weird amalgamation of compromise and a complete desire to not compromise, knowing that compromise never leads to success, you’ve got to follow your heart, only you know what will work. Talk to any creative person with great success, they’ll tell you they know when they achieve greatness, and they know when they don’t. It’s hard, but they have to rely on themselves. And Foster, as a producer, is inherently compromising when in truth he wants to be singular, and can’t hold himself back.

Foster’s not the only one. There’s the case of Mutt Lange, who essentially makes the albums himself. Without him? AC/DC never had a gargantuan hit, and neither did Def Leppard, all their legendary work was done with Mutt.

Foster’s a man out of time. He would have been a giant in Gordon Jenkins’s era. Where the song was everything, and it was a matter of bringing that song to life and getting it down on wax.

But that’s not the era we live in today. Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, they’re all people out of time. Their vocal talents carry them through, but once again, what we want is something more singular, true artists, who speak from the heart, more John Lennon than Olivia Newton-John.

Not that I think Foster will be happy I said all this, he’d rather get adulation, but the truth is he needs to be pushed. He’s got the desire, but all the acolytes are sycophants. Foster’s still got it in him, he loves a challenge, he’ll dedicate all his time and effort into it.

Maybe it’s Broadway.

Or maybe it’s a concept album.

Or maybe it’s even a partnership with someone on his level, who will challenge him. Someone like Van Morrison, even though that’ll never happen. Could Foster push Van to create chart-topping, everlasting material? I think so, Van just needs that little push himself, but Morrison has been so abused he doesn’t want to invite anyone into his party.

Kind of like Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. They both brought different things to the table. And butting heads they came up with something transcendent.

Today’s Foster is Max Martin. Although the Swede is fine living in the background. But like Foster, Martin has sustained success, when everybody else has not, usually producers have their era and then they’re over, can you say “Roy Thomas Baker”?

All this came to mind watching the Foster documentary. The first half is very interesting, how he got from there to here and what he left in his wake. And at the end there’s more of this too. And Foster is wide open, he’s himself, and you cannot help but watch and admire his success, which he earned, nearly completely by himself. Sure, there were business people aligned, but they’re a dime a dozen, Foster was responsible for the creative elements, the most elusive, they’re a challenge.

So, I don’t think the final chapter of David Foster’s life has been written yet, he just needs a bigger challenge. Molding singers into hitmakers? He’s been there and done that, which is why he’s reluctant to do it again. But if Bob Dylan can still carry on…

Foster is no Dylan, but Foster knows what Dylan does not, and vice versa.

Now there’s a pairing.

Most of these superstars just want yes-men or women. But they are the ones who can truly use Foster’s skills. Foster needs to play with people of his caliber. He’s found Katharine McPhee, but now he needs someone in the studio, any takers?

This was recommended to me.

It’s a police procedural, on Netflix, and the gimmick is there are four editions, one for England, one for Germany, one for France and one for Spain. I was worried about seeing them in order, but the truth is they were all launched, or as the kids say, “dropped” (what is the derivation of that word, now anything can be dropped, not just records) on the same day, September 20, 2019, not that there’s been any buzz, at least none that has crossed my threshold.

So Felice wanted to start with the U.K. To tell you the truth, I prefer a foreign language, it’s more exotic, it titillates me in a way, I love going to countries where I do not speak the language, I love that barrier, that difference, it makes me feel alive. Oh sure, the U.K. is great, but when you’re someplace where you have to live by your wits, that thrills me.

I check how many episodes there are. Three, that’s strange, usually there’s ten, sometimes six or eight. Three is digestible, enough to get the complete story across, but the show doesn’t unfold like I think it will, in that each one is self-contained, other than the investigators, one does not connect with another, so you can watch just one and get it, have a completely satisfying experience, and that’s what I’m recommending you do, watch just one episode of “Criminal: UK,” the second one, featuring Hayley Atwell.

The first stars David Tennant, who was so great in “Broadchurch.” He’s not quite that great in this, he’s good, but he doesn’t open up until three quarters through the inquiry, that’s the role unfortunately, I wanted more of him.

But Hayley Atwell…

I’ve never heard of her. But as I look at her Wikipedia page I see she’s in the “Avenger” movies, not that I’ve seen one, life is too short for comic books, I want real life, the truth, and that’s what Ms. Atwell evidences in this episode.

David Tennant is a doctor, dignified, whereas Hayley Atwell plays someone much further down the social stratum, in a country where class matters, where it’s hard to climb up the ladder but people are cool with it. We’re reaching a similar situation in the U.S., it’s just that people are not cool with it.

So, they’re trying to get the story out of Hayley. She’s sassy, voluble, unlike David Tennant in his episode. She’s not scared of the investigators, she’ll tell her story.

Now the nature of this show is the accused says one thing and then another story unfolds. I’m really not giving anything away, once you reach the Atwell episode you know the formula, from the Tennant one that precedes it.

But it’s the story of her life that is so riveting.

Everybody’s got a life, everybody has sex, or wants to, doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. And everybody is tempted, and everybody gets caught up in the moment. That’s’ one thing about crime, your life is chugging along, if not quite swimmingly, at least adequately, and then one false move later, the whole picture changes, and it’s never the same thereafter, and you get no do-overs, no matter how well you did in school, no matter how much you love your mother it’s irrelevant, you did it.

So when Hayley tells the story of her sister… Whew! Sibling relationships, they’re primary, they’re fraught with issues, these are the people closest to you but oftentimes you wish they were far away.

So Hayley Atwell’s performance is so spectacular I had to remark upon it to Felice during the episode. I never used to talk watching TV, but when you watch these series and get to know the characters…

You’re looking at the flat screen and you truly believe Atwell is this person. She goes from confrontational, to acceptance, and then vulnerability, and then pleading…just like a real person would.

I don’t want to tell you more. But the truth is despite the plethora of product, excellence still stands out. I’m not sure we’re going to watch any more of “Criminal,” but it was far from a waste because of this second U.K. episode, because of Hayley Atwell’s performance.

In America a movie star is something different. They’re always beautiful, with no imperfections, they’re always people you’d want to have sex with, oftentimes with little acting ability.

And then there are those who are lauded for their technique, but the truth is their technique supersedes their performance, you just cannot believe they’re somebody other than the star. Of course there are exceptions, even Jack Nicholson, but maybe because he grew up in pulp, B-movies, with Roger Corman.

The movie business used to be exciting, it was the talk of not only the town, but the world. Studio heads were gods. Going to the movies was a ritual, especially in the late sixties into the seventies. The flicks were fodder for conversation. And a good deal were made by the major studios, and then there were those that were not.

Today anybody can make a movie, and oftentimes it seems like anybody does. Your iPhone is 4k, Soderbergh and others have shot features on them. But this technology didn’t exist half a century ago. Films were expensive, and the independent ones, the cheap ones, were made completely differently from the studio pictures. They were done fast, with experimentation, people filled multiple roles, in front and behind the camera. Production had the vibe of “let’s put on a show,” and oftentimes the result was dreck, or close to it, but there were plenty of gems too.

That’s the world Jack Nicholson came up in. So he evidences a weird credibility, believability, in every role. Sure, he’s Jack, but oftentimes you don’t see him as Jack, whereas those classically trained, in universities, frequently don’t resonate as well on film, or can’t hide their identity, like Meryl Streep. Oh, she’s great, and sometimes she blends into the role, but frequently she does not, but in Hollywood once you’re built-up, once you’re accepted, you stay on your perch unless you screw up, you see the system needs heroes, people to believe in. And the strange thing about internet culture is the ones we believe in are frequently the hoi polloi. Bari Weiss may bitch about social media hate and bullying, but the truth is regular participants in the social media world, unlike those in the establishment, puffed up with their degrees, hiding behind the masthead, know this goes with the territory, it’s de rigueur, you’re not supposed to complain, that does you no good, you need to just jump into the fire and stay there, and in the world of so many distractions what you think is so important is a case of myopia, the truth is other than those in your little circle, most people don’t know and don’t care, and events are soon forgotten. You never want to take yourself out of the game, you never want to whine and moan, because that means you don’t understand the game whatsoever.

But the truth is Hayley Atwell was classically trained. But in the U.K., where actors move fluidly from stage to film to TV, they are performers, the emphasis is not on stardom, but the role.

So… I think I’ve spewed enough. But I was touched by Hayley Atwell’s performance. That’s what I like about these series, getting into the world portrayed, forgetting about regular life, believing these people are the characters, and when I clicked the flat screen off the mood sustained and I thought…

I’ve got to tell people about this.

Johnny – Spotify
Johnny – YouTube

I heard this on the Spotify Americana playlist.

I’m getting sick of the news podcasts. The big outlets are neutral when more emotion is necessary. And the ball never really moves.

So I decided to listen to music. I pulled up my Discover Weekly, and surprisingly, every track was up my alley, but only two resonated, David Bromberg’s “Sharon” and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Swingin’.”

She called her mother-in-law
And said ‘I need a little money
I know I can count on you
After that night in Vegas
And the hell we went through

This stuck out. Funny how you can hear a track a zillion times yet still learn new things, how it can hit you in new ways. She didn’t call her mother, but her MOTHER-IN-LAW! My ex asked for money from my father just before she moved out. Funny, aren’t the parents of your spouse supposed to be the enemy, especially your mother-in-law? But when you’re down and out who can you count on? Only those related to you by blood and law.

I never thought of “Swingin'” as a major track. It was not laden with changes, more of a riff and a sound if nothing else, a workout, noise when you’re angry, but judged against the rest of the stuff in the playlist this Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cut loomed large, illustrating that you can know how to play, can know how to write, can know how to sing, but still not be transcendent, there’s an alchemy of those skills that makes musicians and their work memorable, Petty sings like he means it, as if he’s got an important story to tell, albeit with attitude, and the rest of the band plays exquisitely, but this was already in the era when MTV had gone pop/hip-hop and now if you’re an ancient rock band and you release new material the tree has definitely fallen in the forest, but almost no one hears it. Many people make music today, but few deserve attention, we need focus on those who do, but then there are poseurs not quite up to snuff, have you been hit by the Phoebe Bridgers hype, have you listened to the album, when you’ve got a story in the “New Yorker” in advance of release I’m suspicious, when something is jammed down my throat, I’m suspicious, it’s only when I hear about something from friends that I pay attention, it’s not that Ms. Bridgers’s work is bad, it’s just that based on the endless hype you’d expect it to be spectacular, and it’s far from it.

She went down swingin’
Like Glenn Miller
Yeah, she went down swingin’
Like Tommy Dorsey
Yeah, she went down swingin’
Like Sammy Davis
She went down swingin’
Like Sonny Liston

Humor. Irony. Petty sings these lyrics straight, but the deeper meaning cracks you up. The image portrayed earlier in the song is of someone who is struggling, not someone who is dancing, but music is a long continuum, and if you know your history you know that the mentioned musicians did, swing that is, but so did Sonny Liston, so the song ends with that pugilistic legend. “Swingin'” never hit me this hard before, it was rewarding, but once again it was so much better than everything else in the playlist, but it was minor Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, then again in the sixties and the seventies the best and the brightest went into music, whether they were educated or not, and the music was enough, we never did get Tom Petty jewelry, never mind cologne.

I found my Release Radar playlist much less rewarding, too much that was not actually new, and the final cut was “Mother of Muses” by Bob Dylan and once again, I respect the new album on paper, it’s just that it’s not that listenable.

So what next?

The Discover Weekly playlist had been so rewarding. And so many of the genre playlists are not. There was a lot of country in my Discover Weekly, but there are too many skips on the country playlists.

So I went to the Americana one. Which was not extremely rewarding until I got to Sarah Jarosz’s “Johnny.”

Sarah gets credit right out of the box, for not changing her name, compromising her authenticity. John Legend? His real last name is “Stephens,” what’s so wrong with that? Even worse, “Legend” is too self-important, and the truth is this guy is reasonable, especially in attitude/statements, but his moniker undercuts his image, same deal with Alicia Keys, whose real last name is “Cook,” but that was not good enough for Clive Davis, calling yourself “Keys,” would Arthur Rubenstein call himself “Artur Keys”? Once again, it’s self-congratulatory and undercuts any gravitas she might evidence.

Johnny’s on the back porch drinking red wine

THE PRODUCTION!

Now that the barrier to entry is so low, not only do people with substandard voices make music, they surround themselves with amateurs across the board, even though these players and producers believe they’re superstars when the truth is there are journeyman professionals who are superior and available, but it does take some cash.

How could a boy from a little bay town
Grow up to be a man, fly the whole world round
Then end back up on the same damn ground he started

The sound, the playing, and the GROOVE! I immediately locked on to it, was nodding my head, felt good. In other words, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you know it when you hear it.

But the chorus was not up to the standard of the verse.

Nor was the bridge, but at least there was a bridge!

But I had to play “Johnny” again, and again, to sustain the mood, that’s what music delivers that is absent from not only the news, but movies, television, even books, that’s music’s magic.

Lately he’s been thinking ’bout the meaning of time
The small amount we’re given must be sort of crime
Yet the little we have feels like too much most of the time

Well put. Especially in this Covid-19 era, where we’ve got so much time but so much we don’t want to do, we could hoover up the classics, movies, books, but somehow nothing feels right as the clock keeps ticking, and the older you get the more it bothers you, you can see the end, but then there are so many of my generation who’ve surrendered, retired, in thrall to the Grim Reaper long before their time.

He takes another sip of that blood red wine
Just waiting on the stars that will never align
A little luck, a little love, a little light and he’ll be doing just fine

We’re not looking for that much, but it’s amazing how elusive it is.

Sarah Jarosz has been around forever, she first released music at 19 and now she’s only 29. But it took her this long to get seasoned, to have some perspective, despite being nominated and winning a few Grammys, showing how irrelevant those awards are, how come in film and TV there are so few categories and in music there are nearly a hundred, cheapening the already worthless awards, not to mention the imprimatur of victory killing careers, let’s see how Billie Eilish follows up “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” I’ll tell you where there is to go, down, that’s the only direction from the pinnacle, Michael Jackson spent the rest of his life trying to equal “Thriller,” and he never did, despite labeling himself the “King of Pop,” he became a caricature of himself, the music has to make you feel good, not the statuette.

Unfortunately, “Johnny” is not good enough to cross over. It won’t go from the swamp of Americana to the country playlist, never mind Top Forty, but if it were just a tad better, if the chorus and bridge were as good as the verses it would be undeniable, the kind of thing you’d play for everybody you knew, unable to get out of your head, but too many settle for good enough, don’t push themselves to excellence, because it’s hard, it’s easier to stay in the backwater as opposed to going for the brass ring, which you might not even reach. But that’s art, it’s a competition with yourself and the closer you get to the goal the more anxious you become, the harder it is to get to the peak, and as soon as you’re self-conscious, you’re screwed, which is why it’s so hard to do to begin with, those who blaze trails are to be respected, to follow in footsteps is relatively simple.

Yes, I’m employing absolute scale. In an era where the history of recorded music is at everybody’s fingertips and you can only listen to one thing at one time, I like “Johnny” more than all the rest of the new stuff I’ve heard recently, but that just makes me want more, I don’t want Sarah Jarosz to rest on her laurels, I want her to PUSH IT, like Tom Petty, who continued to reach peaks long after his initial heights, who was never satisfied.

“Swingin'” – Spotify
“Swingin'”  – YouTube

Former worldwide head of music at WME, Marc Geiger has history as an agent, a record company executive and a tech founder. Known as a seer, here Marc dives into the inner workings of the agency business and assesses the concert landscape. Listen for insights into the music industry as well as Geiger’s history, from UCSD to Hollywood.

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