Once A King, Now A Prince:

The Music Is Only Half the Job Someone remarked to me recently about how hard it is to succeed in the music business. I had originally answered him online, but the more I thought about my reply, the more I realized I had reduced a lifetime of experience to a few paragraphs. There was a larger music business story sitting underneath it, because when people talk about “the music business,” they sometimes hear only the first word. Music is what brings everyone into the room. Business is what keeps the lights on, gets the record heard, puts the artist on the road, pays the bills, and gives a career a chance to last beyond one lucky break. That does not mean an artist has to become an accountant with a guitar. It does mean that anyone who wants to make a living from music eventually has to understand that he…

When Music Industry True Stories Collide With The Legend I was on one of the top-rated music forums when a post I had started was closed. A member still had a solid and cogent question—one that had not been asked before the thread ended—so he started a second post and presented the question again. His question was simple: “Is this a photo of the industry professionals meeting that Bill Graham discussed in his memoir?” He then posted a lengthy excerpt from Graham’s memoir explaining Bill’s version of what had happened at that meeting. That exchange reminded me why I continue writing music industry true stories. The longer history sits around, the easier it becomes for legend, self-promotion, selective memory, and plain old B. S. to replace what actually happened. Eventually, somebody searches for the story and discovers that people who were really in the room have become footnotes, while others…

From Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out Bill Graham with Robert GreenfieldDoubleday, 1992 Posted by BlueTrane on Steve Hoffman Music Forums Ira, Just now seeing your thread, now unfortunately closed, so I can’t add to it. Is this a photo of the industry professionals meeting that Bill Graham discussed in his memoir? From the memoir: BILL: We did the national Dylan tour followed by the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tour followed by the George Harrison tour right at the very end of the year. One right after another, and it took me and the company into a different realm, creating what eventually became a very problematic situation. In each instance, the artist did not go to an agency which then contacted the local promoters about shows. We booked the tour directly with those promoters in each town or with the facility in that town. We were…

A Rock And Roll True Story From The Other Side Of The Stage A rock and roll true story depends on where you were standing. If you were in the audience, you saw the lights come down, the band walk onstage, the first chord hit, and several thousand people lose their minds. I saw that too, but I was usually looking at something else: the promoter, the building, the ticket demand, the money, the manager, the next city, and the problem nobody in the audience knew existed. That difference is at the center of every rock and roll true story I tell. The audience saw the finished product. I saw the machinery that put it there. Rock And Roll True Story: The Audience Saw Rod Stewart And Faces. I Saw The Strategy When Rod Stewart and Faces were beginning to build in America, the public saw a band exploding in…

Why The Best Music Autobiography Tells The Whole Life Childhood Came Before The Music To understand why I believe a best music autobiography has to be about more than the music business, you have to begin long before I ever booked an artist, negotiated a contract, or walked backstage. My story began in a severely dysfunctional family, where survival came before ambition and childhood left scars that followed me into adulthood. Those years shaped the way I dealt with people, the risks I was willing to take, and the drive that eventually pushed me toward a completely different life. Music became an escape, but it also became something larger: a place where I could build an identity that belonged to me. Many of the best music memoirs concentrate almost entirely on fame, records, tours, and celebrity. My story cannot be told that way because the person who entered the music…

How Power and Influence Raised a Small Fortune for Parkinson’s Disease In the music business, power is usually measured by how many artists you control, how many promoters take your calls, and how quickly you can make something happen. In my years as owner of American Talent International, I had that kind of power. Promoters all over America knew me because they bought my artists, and they knew that when I called, it was usually about business. This music business true story is about one of the rare times I used that position for something that had nothing to do with putting money in my pocket. By then, I was not some guy hanging around the edges of rock and roll. I owned American Talent International, and ATI had become one of the most powerful agencies in the business, representing artists such as Rod Stewart, Deep Purple, and ZZ Top….