Martha Washington
eat it! it's GOOD for you
Re: The Suits
so, Hammond was with Folkways?
so, Hammond was with Folkways?
The Record Executives & Producers
- Thread starter Martha Washington
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Spike
Rock & Soul Archaelogist
Re: The Suits
No Hammond was with Columbia. He produced Bessie Smith's last session c. 1935 and Billie Holiday's first session a year or two later. He introduced Bennie Goodman to Fletcher Henderson -- giving Goodman's band the boost it needed to launch the Swing Era in 1935. He was producing a Goodman session in Chicago c. 1936 and heard Count Basie playing live on his car radio from Kansas City. He traveled down to meet him and then introduced him to New York. He was the impresario that put together the famous "From Spirituals to Swing" concert in Dec 1936 that brought African American music to a broader audience. The show included Basie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and many other blues, jazz and gospel artists. He invited Robert Johnson to perform at that concert -- only to find he'd been murdered the previous August. He was producing a folk session in 1962 with Carolyn Hester when he heard her session musician play the harmonica. He signed the guy on the spot. It was Dylan. Dylan's first album didn't hit commerically and he was known in the halls of Columbia records as "Hammond's Folly." As Algernon noted, Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia in the early 70s. From Bessie Smith -- the Empress of Blues -- to the Boss. Amazing career, huh???
Spike
Martha Washington said:
No Hammond was with Columbia. He produced Bessie Smith's last session c. 1935 and Billie Holiday's first session a year or two later. He introduced Bennie Goodman to Fletcher Henderson -- giving Goodman's band the boost it needed to launch the Swing Era in 1935. He was producing a Goodman session in Chicago c. 1936 and heard Count Basie playing live on his car radio from Kansas City. He traveled down to meet him and then introduced him to New York. He was the impresario that put together the famous "From Spirituals to Swing" concert in Dec 1936 that brought African American music to a broader audience. The show included Basie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and many other blues, jazz and gospel artists. He invited Robert Johnson to perform at that concert -- only to find he'd been murdered the previous August. He was producing a folk session in 1962 with Carolyn Hester when he heard her session musician play the harmonica. He signed the guy on the spot. It was Dylan. Dylan's first album didn't hit commerically and he was known in the halls of Columbia records as "Hammond's Folly." As Algernon noted, Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia in the early 70s. From Bessie Smith -- the Empress of Blues -- to the Boss. Amazing career, huh???
Spike
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Martha Washington
eat it! it's GOOD for you
Re: The Suits
I'll say!!
I know somebody who thinks "Freewheelin'" is Bob Dylan's first album.
I see no reason to correct him.
I'll say!!
I know somebody who thinks "Freewheelin'" is Bob Dylan's first album.
I see no reason to correct him.
DocRock
Vinyl Overlord
Re: The Suits
...stands and applauds Spike's choice (but don't forget Neshui Ertegun!)....
then there were my two former bosses...Mo Ostin & Lenny Waronker at Warner Bros...
(i'd post a pic, but don't know how to upload it in the message)...
lessee....Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Randy Newman, The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Little Feat, The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Cooper, Dio, Montrose, Zappa's Bizarre/Straight output, T-Rex, Van Halen, Dwight Yoakam, Tower of Power, James Taylor, Paul Simon, David Sanborn, Kenny Rogers, Dire Straits, etc., etc. etc...... the label was known within the business as the "artist's label" until they unceremoniously DUMPED Mo in the late '90's....morons... they gave artists decent deals in comparison with other labels and they actually tried to nurture artists careers instead of signing everything in sight and throwing it against the wall to see what stuck... as far as I know, Mo is the ONLY "suit" to ever have a cd set made for him (when he was leaving, one of the staff members assembled a very moving, loving compilation of the acts that Mo had been involved with over the years...yes, I have a copy)... that was the point when I no longer cared about working for them anymore... that was when the REAL "suits" took over... Lenny had two JBL monitor speakers SITTING ON THE CORNERS OF HIS DESK and would listen to an artist's new album LOUD... Ahmet & Neshui were two of the best in the beginning and Mo & Lenny were right up there with them as the '60's started kicking into gear...btw...as a point of interest, the kinks had virtually all of their hits on Reprise, the label that Mo formed for Frank Sinatra...Clive didn't get them until after they had left Reprise and gone to RCA (now BMG) and then he signed them to Arista & had a couple of hits with them.... and I'll admit it...i would have KILLED for Mo & Lenny...they inspired that kind of loyalty in their staff... warner bros. WAS a family and when you were hired there, they told you you were becoming part of the family...when I was hired, they sent my ex-wife a floral bouquet as large as our dining room table and welcomed HER to the family... two guys with class, and most importantly, EARS..... you see what became of Warner Bros. after they left... another corporate gear spinning aimlessly in the giant music machine.... sorry.... didnt mean to vent....
... but Mo and Lenny were two of the best ever...right up there with Ahmet and Neshui... and they didnt go in for blatant self-promotion like Clive Davis and Walter Yetnikoff...as a matter of fact, unless you were a student of the business itself, you never even knew who they were and how important they were to the industry as a whole....[steps down off his soap box and disappears in smoke....]
...stands and applauds Spike's choice (but don't forget Neshui Ertegun!)....
then there were my two former bosses...Mo Ostin & Lenny Waronker at Warner Bros...
(i'd post a pic, but don't know how to upload it in the message)...
lessee....Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Randy Newman, The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Little Feat, The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Cooper, Dio, Montrose, Zappa's Bizarre/Straight output, T-Rex, Van Halen, Dwight Yoakam, Tower of Power, James Taylor, Paul Simon, David Sanborn, Kenny Rogers, Dire Straits, etc., etc. etc...... the label was known within the business as the "artist's label" until they unceremoniously DUMPED Mo in the late '90's....morons... they gave artists decent deals in comparison with other labels and they actually tried to nurture artists careers instead of signing everything in sight and throwing it against the wall to see what stuck... as far as I know, Mo is the ONLY "suit" to ever have a cd set made for him (when he was leaving, one of the staff members assembled a very moving, loving compilation of the acts that Mo had been involved with over the years...yes, I have a copy)... that was the point when I no longer cared about working for them anymore... that was when the REAL "suits" took over... Lenny had two JBL monitor speakers SITTING ON THE CORNERS OF HIS DESK and would listen to an artist's new album LOUD... Ahmet & Neshui were two of the best in the beginning and Mo & Lenny were right up there with them as the '60's started kicking into gear...btw...as a point of interest, the kinks had virtually all of their hits on Reprise, the label that Mo formed for Frank Sinatra...Clive didn't get them until after they had left Reprise and gone to RCA (now BMG) and then he signed them to Arista & had a couple of hits with them.... and I'll admit it...i would have KILLED for Mo & Lenny...they inspired that kind of loyalty in their staff... warner bros. WAS a family and when you were hired there, they told you you were becoming part of the family...when I was hired, they sent my ex-wife a floral bouquet as large as our dining room table and welcomed HER to the family... two guys with class, and most importantly, EARS..... you see what became of Warner Bros. after they left... another corporate gear spinning aimlessly in the giant music machine.... sorry.... didnt mean to vent....
... but Mo and Lenny were two of the best ever...right up there with Ahmet and Neshui... and they didnt go in for blatant self-promotion like Clive Davis and Walter Yetnikoff...as a matter of fact, unless you were a student of the business itself, you never even knew who they were and how important they were to the industry as a whole....[steps down off his soap box and disappears in smoke....]
Spike
Rock & Soul Archaelogist
Re: The Suits
Great post, Doc. I admit to not fully appreciating what you say about Warners. My negative impression probably goes back to a piece I remember reading in Rolling Stone in the early 70s when the Grateful Dead left Warners to form their own label. I remember them slamming them as a giant corporation, saying something like "We've never even met the Warner Brothers."
Spike
Great post, Doc. I admit to not fully appreciating what you say about Warners. My negative impression probably goes back to a piece I remember reading in Rolling Stone in the early 70s when the Grateful Dead left Warners to form their own label. I remember them slamming them as a giant corporation, saying something like "We've never even met the Warner Brothers."
Spike
Spike
Rock & Soul Archaelogist
Re: The Suits
I can't agree on this one, Snee. I love Dylan's first album. But I know I'm in the minority.
Spike
Martha Washington said:
I can't agree on this one, Snee. I love Dylan's first album. But I know I'm in the minority.
Spike
DocRock
Vinyl Overlord
Re: The Suits
.....the Warner Bros. were QUITE dead by the time the Dead had signed with the label....LOL.....and most of band couldn't have told you where they even were at that time, let alone remember their own names....LOOK! A BLUE HORSE!....ROFL! (thank you firesign theater!).... they wanted to leave because they figured out that they could run their own business, or at least try to run it and make more money on their own...sales figures would indicate that warners did a better job for them...an interesting aside here.... Jerry's huge interview that was turned into a book by Jann Wenner & Charles Reich appeared in issue 100 of Rolling Stone... I appeared in the largest picture that ever ran in the Random Notes section in issue 200....LOL....go figure....i'll be the first to admit that NO major label ever gave artists what they truly deserved, including Ahmet and Neshui....it's a business and the business was oriented toward the label, not the artist...however, of all the major labels, Warner and Atlantic were two that did try to be more fair to the artist than the rest of the majors...how many other labels would have supported randy newman and bonnie raitt as long they did...how many labels would have released albums by Van Dyke Parks or Jack Nitzsche or David Axlerod or The Electric Prunes "Mass in F Minor"???....warners did....bonnie blamed the label, and maybe rightfully so, for not getting the push she felt she deserved, however, she didn't really start delivering tunes that could get the ears of radio program directors until she left the label....as far as the dead, can you imagine Columbia/Sony or MCA(Music Cemetary of America) or RCA receiving "Aoxomoxoa" and actually releasing it? They would have looked at the band and told them to quit doing acid and give them something they could put out that radio might play...not warner bros....they said thank you and promptly pressed and released it, airplay be damned...look at what david geffen did with neil young..."there isn't a single on here! give us something else we can SELL!"...and you know what? Neil completed his contract and came home...and what did Neil do to see if we were actually still behind him as an artist? gave us a BLUES album...Neil Young...the blues...kind of like Neil giving Geffen the "Trans" album or the "Neil Young & The Shocking Pinks"....and did we work the crap out of it and got rock radio to PLAY the album, which Geffen DIDN'T do? Hell yes we did! We loved our artists and went to the wall for them...didnt always get what we wanted, but we TRIED....and did we get the video of the year from MTV, FOR A VIDEO THEY REFUSED TO PLAY?.....yo repeato...HELL YES WE DID! because it was a great video!.... there are always label politics going on behind the scenes ie: the producer is a big deal so we have to give this more push/ we have to sign this act and give it push because one of our other big artists management company handles them, so we have to give them push, yada yada yada.... when people ask me what should they do to try and get in the business, i alwys tell them to pick another industry to go into as the music business eats it's young...literally... it's a road that is filled with heartache, despair, back-stabbing, and rip-off/scam artists trying to take your money...IF you make any money!...very few ever reach the happiness/money/goal they are searching for in the business... would >I< have followed my own advice? nope...i knew from the time i was 7 that i wanted to be in the business(thank you Killer! it's all YOUR fault! LOL!)... the business itself is either in your blood or it isnt and if you don't develop a thick skin, it can cut you into mince meat when you blink...i survived....many, many don't....
----------------------------------------Spike said:Great post, Doc. I admit to not fully appreciating what you say about Warners. My negative impression probably goes back to a piece I remember reading in Rolling Stone in the early 70s when the Grateful Dead left Warners to form their own label. I remember them slamming them as a giant corporation, saying something like "We've never even met the Warner Brothers."
Spike
.....the Warner Bros. were QUITE dead by the time the Dead had signed with the label....LOL.....and most of band couldn't have told you where they even were at that time, let alone remember their own names....LOOK! A BLUE HORSE!....ROFL! (thank you firesign theater!).... they wanted to leave because they figured out that they could run their own business, or at least try to run it and make more money on their own...sales figures would indicate that warners did a better job for them
...an interesting aside here.... Jerry's huge interview that was turned into a book by Jann Wenner & Charles Reich appeared in issue 100 of Rolling Stone... I appeared in the largest picture that ever ran in the Random Notes section in issue 200....LOL....go figure....i'll be the first to admit that NO major label ever gave artists what they truly deserved, including Ahmet and Neshui....it's a business and the business was oriented toward the label, not the artist...however, of all the major labels, Warner and Atlantic were two that did try to be more fair to the artist than the rest of the majors...how many other labels would have supported randy newman and bonnie raitt as long they did...how many labels would have released albums by Van Dyke Parks or Jack Nitzsche or David Axlerod or The Electric Prunes "Mass in F Minor"???....warners did....bonnie blamed the label, and maybe rightfully so, for not getting the push she felt she deserved, however, she didn't really start delivering tunes that could get the ears of radio program directors until she left the label....as far as the dead, can you imagine Columbia/Sony or MCA(Music Cemetary of America) or RCA receiving "Aoxomoxoa" and actually releasing it? They would have looked at the band and told them to quit doing acid and give them something they could put out that radio might play...not warner bros....they said thank you and promptly pressed and released it, airplay be damned...look at what david geffen did with neil young..."there isn't a single on here! give us something else we can SELL!"...and you know what? Neil completed his contract and came home...and what did Neil do to see if we were actually still behind him as an artist? gave us a BLUES album...Neil Young...the blues...kind of like Neil giving Geffen the "Trans" album or the "Neil Young & The Shocking Pinks"....and did we work the crap out of it and got rock radio to PLAY the album, which Geffen DIDN'T do? Hell yes we did! We loved our artists and went to the wall for them...didnt always get what we wanted, but we TRIED....and did we get the video of the year from MTV, FOR A VIDEO THEY REFUSED TO PLAY?.....yo repeato...HELL YES WE DID! because it was a great video!.... there are always label politics going on behind the scenes ie: the producer is a big deal so we have to give this more push/ we have to sign this act and give it push because one of our other big artists management company handles them, so we have to give them push, yada yada yada.... when people ask me what should they do to try and get in the business, i alwys tell them to pick another industry to go into as the music business eats it's young...literally... it's a road that is filled with heartache, despair, back-stabbing, and rip-off/scam artists trying to take your money...IF you make any money!...very few ever reach the happiness/money/goal they are searching for in the business... would >I< have followed my own advice? nope...i knew from the time i was 7 that i wanted to be in the business(thank you Killer! it's all YOUR fault! LOL!)... the business itself is either in your blood or it isnt and if you don't develop a thick skin, it can cut you into mince meat when you blink...i survived....many, many don't....
Spike
Rock & Soul Archaelogist
Re: The Suits
Bonnie Raitt's Give it Up is probably one of my Top 50 albums of all time. I think it could have been a big hit with marketing behind it. "Love Has No Pride" seems like prime radio fare to me.
I, of course, bought Aoxomoxa upon release. And I swear I heard "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower" on FM radio. Now "What's Become of the Baby" is another story...
Spike
DocRock said:
Bonnie Raitt's Give it Up is probably one of my Top 50 albums of all time. I think it could have been a big hit with marketing behind it. "Love Has No Pride" seems like prime radio fare to me.
I, of course, bought Aoxomoxa upon release. And I swear I heard "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower" on FM radio. Now "What's Become of the Baby" is another story...
Spike
DocRock
Vinyl Overlord
Re: The Suits
you're right about "Aoxomoxoa"....I was actually thinking of the "Anthem For The Sun" lp and typed "Aoxomoxoa" instead....hey! whadda ya want?!?!... you and I are about the same age...younger than dirt, but older than dust... ....and things just seem to zippppppp right thru sometimes...ROFL!... and i agree with you about "Give It Up"....unfortunately, radio programmers DIDN'T, but it wasnt due to a lack of push from the label...the programmers just didnt get it....
---------Spike said:Bonnie Raitt's Give it Up is probably one of my Top 50 albums of all time. I think it could have been a big hit with marketing behind it. "Love Has No Pride" seems like prime radio fare to me.
I, of course, bought Aoxomoxa upon release. And I swear I heard "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower" on FM radio. Now "What's Become of the Baby" is another story...
Spike
you're right about "Aoxomoxoa"....I was actually thinking of the "Anthem For The Sun" lp and typed "Aoxomoxoa" instead....hey! whadda ya want?!?!... you and I are about the same age...younger than dirt, but older than dust...
....and things just seem to zippppppp right thru sometimes...ROFL!... and i agree with you about "Give It Up"....unfortunately, radio programmers DIDN'T, but it wasnt due to a lack of push from the label...the programmers just didnt get it....
Let's see if we can fire this discussion up again.
Berry Gordy, Jr.
We have him to thank for Motown. He started out writing songs with his sister and took the proceeds from those songs to start producing. He then formed Tamla Records in 1959. Motown was officially born in 1960.
Many artist owe a huge debt of gratitude to Barry: Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Rare Earth, Mavin Gaye, The Commodores, The Jackson 5, The Supremes, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and many others.
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