The Manager’s Corner-“I’m not in it for my Health” (Levon Helm)

Jenn Cohen | June 1, 2013 | 0 Comments

by Chris Daniels

I’ve managed my own band since the 1980s, and despite the amazing change in technology, success in the music business is built around four tried and true elements: great music, really hard work, and timing (often mistaken for luck). The other key element is getting the help you need to make that luck happen. These days that help is everywhere. The book I wrote for my UCD class on artist management is called “DIY: You’re Not in it Alone” and that is exactly what you need to understand. But here is a new set of questions to consider about the biz.

Are there musicians, producers and DJs out there that have reached an age where they should just, “hang it up?” Are the Stones too old to be relevant? Will MC Hammer’s pants ever come back in style? Are you too old to make it now that you’ve reach the age of 24 and your band seems stuck touring in a van through Montana?

While it’s true that 14-year-old guitar phenomenon Quinn Sullivan ripped it up at The Crossroads Festival in New York last month, there was also a 60-year-old guitar player that I will bet most of you have never heard about, and who also ripped it up, being one of Eric Clapton’s favorite guests to include in the event, and who is honestly awesome!

I’ll tell you more about both of these amazing musicians in a moment – and what they have in common–but first the question, Why are we so impressed with the young and so dismissive (in general) of musicians working at their craft past a given age (you pick the age)? And I know that rock and youth and rebellion all play a role, but this goes to a much bigger issue: Is it fame that excites you or is it something inspirational that you hope to achieve with your writing, performing, DJing, producing, whatever?

I don’t ask this lightly, either. Just look around. Justin Bieber asked to be “taken seriously” at the Billboard Awards last month. Where are the Jonas Brothers four years later? Who remembers that Debbie Gibson was once a gifted, very young musician, and not just a contestant staring at Donald Trump’s dead beaver hair-do? I think I’m not overstating this when I say we, as a nation, have become so over saturated with the momentarily famous, and the search for the new “new,” that musicians of every age group are asking themselves a pretty hard question: Am I in this be famous, make it rich, and/or be a star of some kind? Or do I just love doing this so damn much that I can’t NOT do it? And this is where, to me, the jazz musicians of the past and present have something to teach all of us.

Making the choice to play jazz is a courageous thing to do. There is little chance that a career in jazz–and I’m talking very, very successful careers in jazz–have a shot in hell at ever gaining the kind of success we call “fame.” So why do they (you) do it? To perfect their own voice (figuratively speaking) and to live a life filled with the music they love. That’s a pretty powerful statement. It’s not a monastic undertaking, far from it. It’s a collaborative art form, and the jazz heroes are legendary. Take the truly gifted Sonny Rollins who took himself out of the jazz limelight to reinvent his playing through hours of practice on a bridge in New York simply because he felt he had run out of things to say, and wanted to increase his musical vocabulary after his hit “St. Thomas.”

Which brings me all the way back to you. Will the members of Swedish House Mafia reinvent themselves and develop now that they have disbanded? Are there hip-hop stars that are reinventing themselves now that the world has turned another spin, or five, around the sun from their initial success? Bring it closer to home: will the Fray (or members of the band) continue to develop as musicians with new music or projects that are relevant and exciting? Here’s the point:

The artists that amaze me are those who took the jazz approach; in other words, they were in it for the MUSIC…not the fame. Those are the ones who have a life-long career that develops and grows. Two examples are Sam Bush, the “mayor of Telluride” and the father of “new grass.” His music is little known outside the bluegrass and Americana community, but he has a life-long career of making great albums, touring, and recording with everybody you can imagine from Lyle Lovett to Garth Brooks to Dierks Bentley. Sam will be playing the 40^th Anniversary of the Telluride festival this month, and sitting in with just about every act there, and his playing keeps developing and getting, well, more amazing, if that’s possible. He first played the 2^nd annual festival as a young phenomenon in the 1970s.

And now to where we started: That 60-year-old musician featured at Clapton’s Crossroads festival is Sonny Landreth. Never heard of him? Well, he, along with Derik Trucks, completely redefined what a slide guitar can do. This year, Sonny put out a totally instrumental album of breath-taking slide guitar rippin’ rockin’ blues that the critics almost completely missed (OK, except for Guitar Player Magazine). He is developing his art from the days in the 1970s when he played for tips in Estes Park, and now his adventure is allowing him to take new risks with his music and career, to advance his love of the instrument like Sam Bush or Bela Fleck.

And that is my point. Your job, Mr./Ms. musician, DJ, producer, singer, songwriter, performer, is NOT to get famous. If that happens, all the better, but your job is to keep developing your art and your music. Here’s the topper: the musician who is directly responsible for the way we sing today, our phrasing, our timing and note choices, the person who is responsible for creating the coherent solo that eventually everybody from Jerry Garcia to Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix would draw upon, got his first big hit record when he was 64 years old! Pops, the great Louie Armstrong, knocked the Beatles off the charts in 1964 with “Hello Dolly” and it was his biggest international hit ever. Does that mean if you are 35, and your husband, wife or partner is wondering why you are still doing music, that you shouldn’t ask yourself the same question? No, but if, like the jazz musicians and the Sam Bush and Sonny Landreths of this world, you are still going after your craft with love and invention, and joy and sacrifice, then you have a shot at making a difference, even if nobody knows your name like they do the name of Quinn Sullivan. Who?

OK, Quinn is a 14-year-old Massachusetts white kid who grew up about as far from the streets of Buddy Guy’s Chicago as you can, but he fell in love with blues guitar, and Buddy Guy fell in love with his playing. This kid has a shot because, so he says, he didn’t do it because he wanted to be famous; he fell in love with the music. And he’s just starting what I hope will be a long journey of exploration, just like Sonny’s. And THAT journey led them both to the stage at Madison Square Garden.