Category — music

Please try to watch this everyday. It has all the truth and all the sorrow and all the joy we could ever hope for. These things are inseparable: Truth. Sorrow. Joy. There is no need to choose.

Me. Albert King. Another planet.

About 25 years ago, I was driving cross country for the reasons you might expect of a 20-year old who was utterly lost. Where the hell was my life? It had to be somewhere. It was not in the big city suburb I grew up in. Not in the rows of desks at that sheep factory called High School from which I barely graduated and not in any of the sheep factories of higher learning, none of which I bothered to apply to in favor of a succession of waitress and waitress-like jobs and hanging out in bars, and not in the telenovelas of the lives of those I met but had no way to connect with because no one spoke my language. Where was my life? Where were my people? Some hints could be found in books, yes. In music, certainly.

But what did art and music have to do with me? How could I find a life to relate to when I didn’t even know my own location? I could find no discernible roads, no apparent steps to climb, no conceivable destination to maneuver toward. Lost. So I figured, what the hell, I might as well drive around. At least that way my body would be doing what my mind already was, and there’s something oddly satisfying about matching those two up. I got behind the wheel and headed in the only viable direction for a music lover in Boston (or anywhere, really): South. And West. [Read more →]

Some of you may know that I am a huge music lover. I worked in the independent music business for about 15 years. I have heard things that would make your mind explode. (In a good way.) There are a few recordings that I count as my always-fresh, completely beloved, never-tire-of-listening-ever-ever musical loves. They include (but are in no way limited to) the full length recordings Muddy Waters, Folk Singer and John Coltrane & Johnny Hartmann, and these songs: Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” The Allman Brothers’ “Blue Skies,” Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” Vladimir Cosma’s “Sentimental Walk,” Ini Kamoze’s “Hot Stepper,” The Johnson Mountain Boys’ “Christine LeRoy,” Tony Bennett’s version of “The Way You Look Tonight,” Dinah Washington’s “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” The Abyssinian’s “Satta Massagana,” and, even though he’s not a musician per se, I have to include Lord Buckley.

I have no idea what these recordings have in common beyond that I love them. Some always make me cry, others always make me laugh, and all always, always delight me. I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to them. Guru’s first solo recording, Jazzamatazz, Vol. 1 is definitely on this list. So when I heard today that the Guru died of cancer at age 48, I was so sad and also so grateful for having heard his music.

God is Universal; he is the Ruler Universal: may you attain complete realization in whatever realm you choose to inhabit next.

Please crank up the following and wish him well on his journey–

Loungin’ (w Donald Byrd)

Le Bien, Le Mal (w MC Solaar)

Hello book publishers. You’re starting to scare me.

I work in publishing but was a record label executive from 1990-2001 and am fascinated by parallels between the two industries. When it comes to the digitization of product and attempts to master/mangle the phenomenon of social media, the publishing business is where the music business was about 10 years ago. And although publishing probably sets its collective IQ (not to mention good manners) as superior to the music business, I can’t find evidence that their reactions to industry sea change are substantially different.

While attending this week’s O’Reilly’s Tools of Change in Publishing conference, I heard a lot of this:

There is still time to change course and we’ve got to do something now—but we don’t know what.

In the meantime, let’s co-opt whatever new trends we see out there by assigning some low-level marketing person to troll Twitter or hiring a social media consultant.

Please, please don’t let us end up like the record business.

If there’s anything to be learned from the recent past, it’s that none of these thoughts are worth pursuing. The “somebody do something” mentality duplicates the kind of hoping-for-the-best attitude espoused by long-time executives in music who simply could not or would not question the viability of the professional cocoons they’d built for themselves. And who can blame them—corporate mega structures are schooled in consolidation as the primary means of growth, not fleet-footed, shape-shifting responsiveness to change. But now we’re in a world where getting bigger is not the answer, getting smaller is.

The question I hoped would be addressed at the conference was: How will publishing avoid being trapped by its own environment? But it never was. Instead, I noticed a lot of talk of waiting and seeing how things are going to work out before making any earth-shaking, world-class responses to a world that has already changed.

At the conference, I was excited for a keynote aimed at comparing the music and publishing industries. Although entertaining, it lacked vision. The speaker talked about how only wimps fear the freedoms of the digital marketplace and attempt to control intellectual property rights and that at least we’re not going to start arresting people like those thugs over at the RIAA. I was disappointed not to hear a more sophisticated dissection, beginning with debunking the idea that digital downloads killed the music business, or could kill publishing.

Downloads did not kill the music business. Shortsightedness and turf-protection on the part of music business executives did. Piracy and changing distribution schema will not kill the publishing industry. Shortsighted infrastructure-protection on the part of publishing houses will.

What offed the music business—and what the publishing industry is facing—is a corporate structure built to churn out hits to subsidize an entire product line. (For more detail on how this happened–boring to everyone but me–see this 2007 post.) Rather than developing artists, exploiting regional marketplaces, and building financial models that can support a mid-range list, both industries sold their souls out to entertainment at the expense of art and expression. Both are in the business of selling many copies of a few items, not a few copies of many items—the kind of product that can be shot out of a cannon, dominate the retail market, and then basically disappear—because anything else is simply too complicated for a similarly bulked up corporate retail environment to track. The appearance of downloads and file sharing could almost be seen as a desperate measure on the part of consumers to listen and read in an un-mandated manner.

Commodification of bookselling is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room, not e-books or DRM (Digital Rights Management) or the Kindle.

Without making friends with this beast, my guess is that in 2-5 years we’ll see a publishing industry that looks like the music business does today: Super-downsized major companies selling a product line aimed at an older demographic and a jillion new companies creating the next generation of publishers, retailers, and readers. Just like in the music business, some in publishing will be mourning the death of the business while others will be wildly excited because all they see is opportunity.

At Tools of Change, Sara Lloyd of Pan-MacMillan nailed it when she said, “Publishers understand markets, but not customers.” As anyone in the music business could have told you years ago, the customer is now a human being, and publishers—who still see retail as their customers—don’t know how to build products for individuals who might want to discuss, interact with, congregate around, or add their own $0.02 to the content. The customer has stepped out of the bookstore and into the foyer of the publishing houses, they are knocking on the doors of authors, and asking to be addressed as individuals. They will consent to purchase, not when coerced by a front-of-the-store display or fabulous media coverage, but when their friends start talking about how awesome/helpful/inspiring/powerful the actual book itself is. And this—the book itself—is what publishing has lost sight of in the attempt to build market share. To change this kind of corporate culture will require super-human “change management” to flip a mega-entity staffed by people who are petrified of losing their jobs into a business that can be one step ahead (instead of ten steps behind) consumption trends.

Ultimately, the music business sacrificed music to save the business. Hopefully, publishers will realize that if books are similarly sacrificed, what will be left is an industry that doesn’t care about its product, focuses on creating grandiose supply chains instead of amplifying demand, has no idea what its customers want, sees value only in commodification, and has to keep spinning out hit after hit after hit just to keep the doors open. The result? A beast that consumes itself. I truly wish I had heard some mention of this at the conference. Maybe next year.

I think we all know the answer to that now…

(skip first 1:05)

Check out “You Are Too Beautiful” from what may be my favorite recording of all time. Called “the greatest album ever made” by Esquire Mag in 1990. Only recording Coltrane ever made with a vocalist. Supreme, supreme, supreme. Makes me weep. Literally.

Click on album cover to hear the track:

Check out the whole recording here. Please. You will be so happy.

Jimmy Ruffin

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While writing my book on heartbreak (”The Wisdom of a Broken Heart,” due out in September ‘09), I’ve turned again and again to that time honored source of knowledge and solace: music.

Here are the lyrics to my current all-time fave. It is just so wrenching and poetic. Grab a kleenex and enjoy.

WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN HEARTED

Songwriters: James Dean/Paul Riser/William Weatherspoon

As I walk this land of broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusion

What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind, maybe

The roots of love grow all around
But for me they come a tumblin’ down
Every day heartaches grow a little stronger
I can’t stand this pain much longer

I walk in shadows searching for light
Cold and alone, no comfort in sight
Hoping and praying for someone to care
Always moving and going nowhere

What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind, help me

I’m searching though I don’t succeed
But someone look, there’s a growing need
All is lost, there’s no place for beginning
All that’s left is an unhappy ending

Now what becomes of the broken-hearted
Who had love, that’s now departed
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind

I’ll be searching everywhere
Just to find someone to care
I’ll be looking everyday
I know I’m gonna find a way

Nothing’s gonna stop me now
I’ll find a way somehow
I’ll be searching everywhere

Betrayal. Love lost. Murder. Sweet sorrow. Haunted voices speaking from beyond the grave… This song (recorded by the great, great Johnson Mountain Boys) has it all.

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No, brother, I'll never grow better
'Tis useless to tell me so now
My broken heart is only awaiting
For a resting place under the snow
I was thinking last night, dear brother
How happy our home was with joy
When a serpent crept into our Eden
In the form of fair Christine LeRoy

I was thinking last night of our wedding
One year ago only tonight
When we stood 'neath the gaslights so happy
In jewels and garments of white
When she came with the face of an angel
To wish us a lifetime of joy
My heart sank within at the malice
In the face of fair Christine LeRoy

Diamonds gleamed high in her tresses
Falling back from her ivory brow
And glistened like stars in the heavens
On her fingers as white as the snow
When she gave her white hand to my husband
I knew he thought me a toy
By the side of that radiant beauty
That beautiful Christine LeRoy

Time passed away and my husband
Grew thoughtless and careworn each day
I knew 'twas the wiles of the demon
Who so artfully lured him away
When at last one bright evening I found them
'Twas a sight all my life to destroy
Hand in hand with her head on his shoulder
Sat my husband and Christine LeRoy

Now brother, be kind to your darling
For my heart has grown sick now and faint
For the thoughts of the wiles of the demon
In the beautiful form of a saint
When I sleep 'neath the snowdrifts of winter
Where no sorrow or pain can destroy
Just tell them they've murdered me, brother
God forgive him and Christine LeRoy

Satta Massagana

The Abyssinians

So beautiful. Such harmonies. So ridiculously laid back. National anthem of reggae, some say.

I hear that the non-English sounding lyrics (Satta Massagana Ahamlai, for example) are Hebrew. But I speak Hebrew and I don’t understand these words. But what do I know. Jah Rastafari.

08-satta-massagana.mp3

I usually don’t play music when I write–too distracting. With one exception. When I want to get serious, I put this on repeat and listen to it over and over. I don’t know why but for me it’s perfect–perfect tempo, perfectly spacious. Love.

From the “Diva” soundtrack from about 20 yrs ago.

sentimental-walk.mp3