Practical advice and business savvy for aspiring musicians looking to make it in the music industry

Hot Hits, Cheap Demos is rooted in real-life music business experience, not classroom theory. It reveals the secrets of artist development using the creative process as the foundation for success, and provides solid direction for you to plan and evaluate your path to success. Lauded industry professional Nadine Condon draws on her business savvy to give up-to-date advice on the ever-changing music world, and she bolsters it with success stories of clients and friends alike. Regardless of your musical persuasion, this is the one instrument that will save you money, time, and heartache.

Hot Hits, Cheap Demos shows you how to:

• Jumpstart your career

• Create a press kit and develop sure-fire marketing strategies

• Contact clubs and alternative venues

• Produce and promote your own shows

• Make an eye-catching Web site

• Create a standout song, find a producer, package a CD

And includes:

• 12 tips you can't afford to forget

• Facts and fiction about radio airplay

• A checklist for finding a manager, agent, and lawyer

• Secrets for getting major label attention

• Contract options and publishing and performing rights

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Also on 3/3/04:  Dick Waterman talking about his new photo book:  "Between Midnight & Day"

 

Between Midnight and Day is the groundbreaking record of Dick Waterman's most important photographs from his unparalleled vintage blues archive. Beginning in 1964 with the rediscovery of legendary Delta blues singer Son House, Dick Waterman established Avalon Productions, the first agency devoted exclusively to managing and promoting blues musicians. While acting as their manager Waterman photographed blues legends like Son House, Skip James, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Booker White, Arthur Crudup, John Hurt, Robert Pete Williams, and many more. Along with his photographs, Between Midnight and Day provides an oral history of Dick Waterman's experiences with these amazing blues musicians. His vivid accounts of musicians John Lee Hooker, Sippie Wallace, Eric Clapton, Bobby Blue Bland, Janis Joplin, Willie Dixon, Furry Lewis, Bob Dylan, Luther Allison, and Fred McDowell provide compelling reading for anyone interested in the rich legacy of the blues. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3/10/04:  Author Scott Yanow on his book "Jazz on Record" The complete story of all of jazz's significant artists and their recordings through six decades of music In this comprehensive volume, Scott Yanow traces the history of jazz through its recordings. Most live performances from this rich 60-year period are lost forever, but jazz fans can experience a rich legacy of recorded work. Sorting through and colorfully commenting on thousands of CDs and LPs, Yanow points out which performances are the most representative of the great 20th-century artists and which recordings are essential to jazz fans' collections. Along the way he takes readers on a journey through the golden ages of jazz, covering styles such as New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, Dixieland, hard bop, soul jazz, the avant-garde, and fusion — and showing how these forms diverge, develop, and continue to flourish. "By the remarkable, indefatigable Scott Yanow." —San Francisco Examiner Scott Yanow has contributed to virtually every leading jazz publication since 1975, written liner notes for over 300 recordings, and reviewed more jazz recordings than anyone in history. He is the author of Duke Ellington, Trumpet Kings, Classic Jazz, Swing, Bebop, and Afro-Cuban Jazz, and the editor of the 3rd Edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz.
Also on 3/10, NY singer-songwriter Rosalinde Block will be coming into the studio to perform. Rosalinde's Block party is a  fusion/Steely Dan edge, neoclassic soul- jazz/r&b/gospel/pop Rosalinde is back full-tilt with Block Party yet still sees 25-30 piano students each week. She draws not only from her own classical training, but also helps kids create their own compositions - from writing and arranging to recording. Additionally, the multi-talented Rosalinde is a commissioned artist/ illustrator. She is also the author of several books, including KID PIE-52 Slices of Life, a "feelings" book for preteens, which is currently being developed for a reality TV show. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3/17 Author Michael Lydon, on his updated book "Ray Charles, Man and Music" Book Description  The first comprehensive, definitive biography of Ray Charles.  Based on extensive interviews with Ray Charles himself, as well as more than 150 other sources "Absolutely fresh and compelling. This is a book not just about Ray Charles but about the world that nourished and inspired him. A true revelation."-Peter Guralnick, author of Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love "An exhaustively researched, movingly written biography of the man Frank Sinatra once called 'the only genius in our business.'"-People "Admirable...engrossing...Lydon isn't afraid to peek under those dark glasses and present a complete picture of this phenomenally talented but equally complicated man."-Jeff Turrentine, Forbes "[Ray Charles] may well be the ultimate American story....Remarkably candid. A scrupulous and perceptive piece of work."-Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "This is no quickie pop-star bio. Lydon understands that Ray Charles is a character as complicated as any in fiction and fully as interesting. Dostoevsky might have invented Ray Charles, had he the inspiration."-The Newark Star-Ledger "Lydon's richly detailed account powerfully evokes his times and context....Essential reading for popular-music fans."-Booklist Also on 3/17, the return of Tad Lathrop, on his book, "This Business of Music, Marketing & Promotion" The maxim in the music industry has always been “You can’t make it on talent alone,” and with This Business of Music Marketing & Promotion, you don’t have to. In language that is simple and direct, author Tad Lathrop details promotional skills, publicity plans, royalty guidelines, and more, all supported by real-life examples. He shows how the Web and other technological developments have revolutionized not only how music is made, but how it is marketed and promoted. The old rules still apply—create a marketing plan, know your copyrights, be familiar with the laws of commerce—but there are a host of new ones as well, along with new strategies on how to give your recording the exposure it deserves. This streamlined, reorganized, and updated edition features an all-new chapter (“Twenty-Five Profile-Building Ideas to Use Right Now”), which will help readers get a running start in the recording business. They’ll also find completely updated material about Internet sales and promotion techniques, the latest information available on integrated marketing and e-marketing strategies, and brand-new listings of information resources. New edition focuses on the full integration of online sales and promotion into the standard music marketing mix Expanded coverage of new Internet marketing techniques and opportunities First edition sold over 30,000 copies Tad Lathrop has written and edited music and marketing materials for a host of companies and publishers, including SonicNet and Launch. He lives in Oakland, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3/24:  Jimmy McGriff.  Who will be performing MARCH 26th - 28TH AT THE HUDSON HOUSE TO KICK OFF THE 2004 NYACK JAZZ & FUNK FESTIVAL CONCERT SERIES. "They've always classified me as a Jazz organist which I am not," states Jimmy McGriff. "I'm more of a Blues player. That's what I really feel." With innumerable Top Ten albums to his credit, there is no mistaking McGriff's status as a legend. A master of the Hammond B-3, his renditions of Jazz and Blues classics along with his own compositions like "All About My Girl", "Kiko", "Vicki" and "Granny’s Lane", have made him a Blues original. The influence of neighbor Richard "Groove" Holmes was dynamic though, and he studied privately with him. Jimmy also studied organ at Philadelphia's Combe College of Music and at Julliard. In addition, he studied privately not only with "Groove", but with Milt Buckner and with classical organist Sonny Gatewood. An A&R rep for Sue Records heard Jimmy playing organ at a small club in Trenton, NJ, offered him a contract and Jimmy was on his way to becoming an international favorite. Jimmy's arrangement of "I Got A Woman", on the Sue label, made it to the top five on both Billboard's R&B and Pop charts ... and the hits have kept coming year after year. There are close to 100 albums with Jimmy McGriff's name at the top as leader. He has recorded for Sue, Solid State, United Artists, Blue Note, Groove Merchant and recently for Milestone, Headfirst and Telarc. In his prolific career, Jimmy has recorded with George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Frank Foster, JJ Johnson and even a two-organ jam affair with the late "Groove" Holmes. Jimmy McGriff has performed in concert with Count Basie, Wynton Marsalis, Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Lou Donaldson, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band. He also toured and recorded with the great Buddy Rich for two years in the mid 70's. . Currently Jimmy performs around the world with his own Quartet, carving his own distinctive organ niche. Incorporating traditional gospel with a spiritual feel, he often teams up with musical buddy Hank Crawford in concert and on records. Jimmy McGriff has received numerous awards over the years. Whether these accolades refer to him as a Blues master or a Jazz legend, McGriff fans will tell you that he just reaches for your heart and soul with his music and always comes up with a "feel-good" gettin' down sound!

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Also on 3/24 Jeff Healey will be calling in, and will be performing at BB Kings in Time Square NYC, on April 4th for 2 performances.

Facts alone pay insufficient tribute to the talents of Jeff Healey, but they at least provide a continuing framework for the story of one of Canada's most celebrated and accomplished musicians.

Rendered blind from eye cancer since the age of one, Healey picked up his first guitar at three, and - by playing the instrument flat on his lap - patented a revolutionary technique that went on to become a trademark of his performance. By the age of six, Healey was playing and singing in public. Once he reached his teens, the guitarist had already played in several bands, and experimented with numerous musical genres. At the age of fourteen, Healey had become the principal music specialist at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, routinely airing vintage selections from his now 25,000-strong collection of 78 rpm recordings for his weekly radio broadcast.

In 1988, the band came to the attention of Arista Records in the U.S., and a flurry of activity followed. The band released its first album, See The Light, featuring original songs alongside some rock staples by John Hiatt, ZZ Top and Freddie King. it also spawned a top 10 single in "Confidence Man", and a Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 ranking for "Angel Eyes", leading JHB to appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The album went through the roof in Canada, selling well over 300,000 copies and went Platinum (1 million) in the U.S. Healey was also nominated for a Grammy Award alongside Santana, for Best Instrumental" for his performance on the track "Hideaway". Also, at the same time, a producer named Jimmy Iovine cast the band in a Patrick Swayze film, Road House, and flew the band to L.A. to cut the movie's soundtrack. Both the film and the soundtrack were released in 1989.

In 2003, Healey and company have returned with a vengeance. Get Me Some has all the raw, lurid force its title suggests. The revved-up riffs and screaming harp of "Which One" drops off into the slowed-down molten groove of "Hey Hey". Healey covers the sonic palette on this album, even tempting the fates by covering the Diane Warren penned "I Tried", to stunning effect. His supple vocals lend songs like "I Should Have Told You" and "Love Is The Answer" a melancholy, keening quality, traits that have come to define Healey's incomparable style.
 

A potent blend of Chicago blues and Memphis soul, Did You Ever Wonder? features five originals written by Tad and longtime collaborator John Bean along with six classics including the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose gem Too Late to Turn Back Now featuring special guest Otis Clay.

A stellar backing group includes ALEX SHULTZ - guitar (Rod Piazza, William Clark), MARTY BINDER - drums (Albert Collins, Junior Wells), HARLAN TERSON - bass (Lonnie Brooks, Otis Rush), and horn charts by soul legend WILLIE HENDERSON (Tyrone Davis, Chi-Lites).

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