Music Business Artist Development Volume 1: Artist Development, #1

By James Bruce

This new book is first of two books to be published about the music business a collection of subjects previously released as ebooks.  This book is the result of my 35 years in the business of music.  Over those 35 years I have written, collected and reflected on what I feel is necessary and critical subject material for anyone interested in the music business.  I assure you if you have or are interested in a career in the music business you will learn and hopefully succeed in this business by reading my books.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Bruce
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224533961

James Bruce

About the Author by Marcia Ferko      Meet James Bruce, author, producer, agent, manager, business owner, and proud dad, grandpa, and great-grandpa. This accomplished individual’s life story invites you to also seek and find the best of yours.      His generous, Christian and passionate heart for others has opened doors of opportunity and success for many.  Through his own trial and error of failures and successes, he has shared his riches of wisdom with others. He has become an ambassador and liaison in both the private and professional settings and has been a mentor to many.      Through years of life experiences, Jim has become a conduit of knowledge for the past and the present. He tries to capture both as you read through his wealth of information here with him.  We all can learn from each other’s life and Jim’s life is certainly a unique example of that.      His adventure is not through yet. His mantra still is “Dance while music is still playing and live your best life while it still lies before you!!!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction

Meet James Bruce, author, producer, agent, manager, business owner, and proud dad, grandpa, and great-grandpa. This accomplished individual’s life story invites you to also look for and find the best of yourself. His generous, Christian, and enthusiastic heart for others has opened doors of opportunity and success for many. Through his trial and error of failures and successes, he has shared his riches of wisdom with others. He has become an ambassador and liaison in both the private and professional settings and has been a mentor to many. Through years of life experiences, Jim has become a conduit of knowledge for the past and the present. He tries to capture both as you read his wealth of information here with him. We all can learn from each other’s life and Jim’s life is certainly a unique example of that. His adventure is not through yet. His mantra still is "Dance while music is still playing and live your best life while it still lies before you!!

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Please visit me at the following websites

http://www.kidderentertainmentofohio.com

www.facebook.com/spotlight4

www.linkedin.com/in/accesstalent

www.twitter.com/accesstalent7

www.jamesbruceinstructor.com

Chapter 2

A Little Bit About Me

I was born in 1946, the first of seven children raised on a small horse farm in Delaware County Ohio USA. I graduated from Big Walnut High School in Sunbury Ohio. After graduating I enlisted in the Air Force from 1965 to 69 receiving an honorable discharge from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico after spending 3 years in Germany. I attended Maryland University and New Mexico State during my time in service. After my discharge from the service, I became personnel manager of Elston Richards Storage Company, a real estate agent for Frank B Young, and an insurance agent for Metropolitan Life.

I attended Wittenberg University for 4 years and became a broker for my own real estate and insurance companies. After 24 years in real estate in 18 years in insurance, I concentrated on my new career as a talent agent/manager in 1989. I started Access Entertainment Group first as a booking agent and later as the owner of a record label known as Spotlight Records. I met my first client, a country singer by the name of John Crabtree who I successfully booked and promoted for 2 years. Business continued to grow for the next 35 years.

Access Entertainment and Spotlight Records successfully signed, recorded, published, managed, booked, and promoted different exclusive acts in the country, pop, and rock genres.

In 2022 I agreed to sign on and merge with Kidder Entertainment of Ohio as Senior Vice President to promote and book the best talent for our clients. I retired from Access Entertainment and Spotlight Records in early 2023 so that I could spend more time with Kidder Entertainment. I am currently booking local, regional, and national acts in and around Ohio.

It is now that I have decided to share my passion and knowledge of the music business including career development, music promotion, marketing, production, publicity, and resources. Through these courses, I will teach all facets of the music business to anyone interested in the music business either as an artist, producer, manager, agent, promoter, or curious person. I hope you will enjoy these courses I have prepared for you. I look forward to collaborating with you in my classes. Currently, I have authored and published 20 eBooks and 1 autobiography titled How Hollywood Got Sex and Life All Wrong Please visit www.smashwords.com/books/view/1294037

Chapter 3

Music History

What is a band? According to the dictionary, a band is a group of instrumentalists playing music of a specialized type. Being a researcher has been an especially important part of my business. Here are some of the facts in researching the history of bands. I believe that if you want to become an artist of anything you should learn a little or if you want a lot about the subject matter.

Early Military Use

Wind instruments and drums were basic to battle long before Shakespeare or Dryden. In the Bible, the Old Testament book of Judges describes an Israelite leader named Gideon who, in the 12th century BC, routed a far superior force of Midianites with three hundred men, each carrying nothing more than a trumpet in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. Musicians during the Crusades began to use wind and percussion instruments as elements of war. In addition to stipulating how they should be used for communication in battle, further recommend that military music be used as an aid for marching. From these simple, even crude origins, the march, with its military foundation, evolved into what would become the most common art form identified with the wind band.

Early Marches

Marches from the 17th and 18th centuries are simple, functional pieces, often adapted from popular songs, operas, and oratorios. Adapting popular tunes for marches seems to have been quite prevalent. In America, from the middle of the nineteenth century through the Civil War, bands were brass bands, consisting of cornets, saxhorns, and drums. Afterward, due to the influence of legendary bandmasters such as Patrick Gilmore, the popularity of the military band rose.

The Golden Era of the March

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Sousa Forms His Own Band

In 1892 Sousa made two decisions that would make him a wealthy man. First, he negotiated royalty contracts for the publication of his music instead of flat fee payments, and second, he resigned from the Marine Band and formed his professional band.

While on tour with the Marine Band in 1892, Sousa was approached by David Blakely who had managed several tours in the past for Gilmore. Blakely, speaking on behalf of a syndicate of businesspeople, offered him four times his military salary of $1500, plus twenty percent of the profits, to form and direct a professional band.

Sousa accepted. Sousa's band soon set up itself as the foremost professional band in America if not the world. As fate would allow, Sousa formed his band right at the time of Gilmore's sudden death. Its first concert was presented at Plainfield, New Jersey, on September 26, 1892, two days after Gilmore’s death.

The Stars and Stripes Forever

John Philip Sousa was on a tour of Europe with his wife in 1896 when he received a cable from New York informing him of the death of the Sousa Band's tour manager, David Blakely. Feeling compelled to return to New York as soon as possible, Sousa and his wife set sail from Naples, Italy for America in quick fashion. In his autobiography Marching Along, Sousa explained what happened next:

Here came one of the most vivid incidents of my career. As the vessel steamed out of the harbor, I was pacing the deck, absorbed in thoughts of my manager's death and the many duties and decisions that awaited me in New York. Suddenly, I began to sense the rhythmic beat of a band playing within my brain. It kept on ceaselessly, playing, playing, and playing. Throughout the whole tense voyage, that imaginary band continued to unfold the same themes, echoing, and re-echoing the most distinct melody. I did not transfer a note of that music to paper while I was on the steamer, but when we reached shore, I set down the measures that my brain-band had been playing for me, and not a note of it has ever been changed. The composition Sousa referred to was none other than The Stars and Stripes Forever. This signature march eventually became the official march of the United States, as well as one of the most familiar pieces known throughout the world.

Please note the next comment on music history I believe is especially important to cover bands of today. Sousa not only incorporated the music of well-known Europeans but also kept up with contemporary tastes as well with his selections of contemporary music.

Sousa and his Band toured the United States yearly, made four tours of Europe between 1900-05, and took one world tour (1910-11). During WWI, the band was inactive while Sousa served in the U.S. Navy. He organized band units and toured with the Jackie Band—an ensemble of more than three hundred sailors formed to aid the war effort.

After the war, the Sousa Band actively toured again until the Depression and Sousa's declining health brought the band's demise in 1931.

The 19th century ushered in the glory days of the march. As bands grew and popularity, civic and professional bands often wore two hats fulfilling military obligations in addition to providing music for civic occasions.

To this end, band performances interspersed marches with waltzes, quadrilles, galops, polkas, or whatever the popular trend was at the time. As a result, marches no longer served a marching or military purpose exclusively, but were penned to celebrate occasions that might be military and/or civic in nature, or to commemorate regiments, generals, rulers, or specific battles.

Origins of the School Bands

Lowell Mason has long been credited with setting up music programs in the public schools of America. His inclusion of singing classes in the curriculum of Boston grammar schools in 1838 was a notable beginning for public music education but did little for the perpetuation of instrumental music. For the next fifty years vocal music at the secondary school level stayed an extracurricular activity and bands and orchestras appeared sporadically at best. Academic programs had little use for artistic subjects. Instead, they emphasized what seemed at the time to be the most practical subject matter. The dramatic urbanization of American society led to a fourfold increase in secondary school enrollments between the years 1885 - 1910. Concurrent with this increase were demands for activities and services not previously provided by public education, such as health centers, child guidance clinics, nursing programs, hot lunch programs, and playgrounds. Interscholastic athletics and military training programs became popular, along with the addition of vocational and citizenship classes. These changes in the social and educational norms made it possible for the Sunday school orchestra and the firehouse band to move into the schoolhouse.1 EmilA. Holz, The Schools Band Contest of America (1923), Journal of Research in Music Education Vol. 10:1 (Spring) p. 3

Professional Bands

Numerous musicians played important roles in fostering a band movement that would capture the imagination and hearts of Americans well into the 20th century. One reason for the incredible growth in music interest was the substantial number of accomplished musicians who migrated from Europe to live in America. As teachers, performers, and conductors, these musicians affected the general populace most profoundly.

Decline in Professional Bands

Looking back to 1890, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 bands were active in the United States, interest having been stimulated by the popularity of the professional bands.

In 1915 Albert Austin Harding reported that at one time the state of Illinois had more bands than towns. Bands were found in schools, universities, factories, department stores, churches, amusement parks, prisons, seminaries, and schools for the feeble-minded.

Most were small, but a few boasted over one hundred musicians. Unfortunately, this phenomenon could not sustain itself. EmilA. Holz describes the ensuing situation:

These thousands of bands supplied music for parades, civic ceremonials, concerts, and dances. As the popularity of Sousa and the other great bandleaders increased, a host of imitators appeared. The intense competition that developed led to price-cutting and charlatanism. As quality deteriorated the attraction of the town or park band waned. By 1920 many had succumbed to the simultaneous attacks of jazz, the automobile, the moving picture, and the phonograph. The great concert bands ceased touring and village bandstands stood deserted.

Great Entertainers

People have always enjoyed entertainment, often paying exorbitant amounts to attend events. As a result, contemporary society has made multimillionaires of any number of entertainers and athletes. When one attends a professional sports event or a rock concert, even though multiple thousands may be in attendance, ticket prices are exorbitant—the justification being that you will not see anything quite like this anywhere else. So, it was in America during the 19th century. People were always looking for something bigger or more spectacular to capture their imaginations. Ole Bull, the virtuoso violinist, performed in two hundred concerts between 1843-1845 and grossed four hundred thousand dollars before returning to Norway. He literally played to the audience with his lavish rendition of Yankee Doodle and tugged at the patriotic heartstrings when he played the Grand March to the Memory of George Washington. Or consider the spectacle of pianist Henri Hertz who arrived in America at the end of Bull's sojourn and remained for six years. His spectacular trills runs, and arpeggios dazzled the audience as much as the advertised one thousand candles used to light the performance hall.

Liberace had nothing on Hertz. The visual and sound spectacle added something of a P.T. Barnum quality to the performance, and indeed Barnum himself was the agent for the soprano Jenny Lind when she toured America. For her efforts, she pocketed one hundred thirty thousand dollars in profits after two years of concerts.

All the above suggests that America was ripe for a flamboyant conductor heading a world-class ensemble. The first was a Frenchman named Jullien, who conducted an orchestra in a series of extraordinarily popular concerts in America. Upon his return to Europe, an Irish immigrant named Patrick S. Gilmore traveled in the United States and other parts of the world with a concert band the likes of which no one in America and even in Europe had previously heard. The year he died a young upstart named Sousa formed a professional band that would thrill audiences (albeit with more music and less hype) for decades.

During the time of Gilmore's and Sousa's success, there were thousands of concerts played by innumerable professional and community bands across the country.

From the end of the Civil War until the Great Depression, these bands were the heart and soul of music-making in the U.S.

The Great Depression hit late in the 1920s and remained throughout the 1930s, heavily influencing the music of the time. Some music like blues and country reflected the hardships faced by many, while most other popular music like big band and swing kept an upbeat feeling in the air. Popular music served its purpose of supplying an escape from the harsh conditions of the Thirties. Many songs addressed the current issues while staying optimistic, while others addressed the mood with a more tongue-in-cheek approach.

Popular Genres: Swing, Jazz, Country, Traditional Pop, Crooners, Big Band

Popular Artists: Rudy Vallee, Cab Calloway, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, Gene Autry, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Kate Smith, and Tommy Dorsey.

The music of the 1940’s consisted of jazz, big band, and swing. It reflected the pain of World War II while also trying to remain upbeat and looking towards a positive future full of possibilities. Because much of the world took part in the war during the decade, many artists and groups put their efforts into entertaining troops, especially in the US with the USO.

Popular Genres: Jazz, Big Band, Swing, Country, Bebop, Novelty Acts, Band Leaders

Popular Artists: Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, Dorsey Brothers, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, and Ella Fitzgerald.

America’s Rocks and Roll

The prosperity of the '50s allowed teenagers to spend money on records by their favorite bands and singers. Rock and roll were everything the suburban 1950s were not. While parents of the decade were listening to Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and big bands, their children were moving to a new beat. In fact, to the horror of the older generation, their children were twisting, thrusting, bumping, and grinding to the sounds of rock and roll. This generation of youth was much larger than any in recent memory, and the prosperity of the era gave them money to spend on records and phonographs. By the end of the decade, the phenomenon of rock and roll helped define the difference between youth and adulthood.

The Roots of Rock

Alan Freed, the Cleveland disc jockey credited with coining the phrase rock and roll, was the host at many of the first rock concerts, including his 1955 Easter Jubilee. The roots of rock and roll lay in African American blues and gospel.

As the Great Migration brought many African Americans to the cities of the north, the sounds of rhythm and blues attracted suburban teens. Due to segregation and racist attitudes, however, none of the greatest artists of the genre could get much airplay. Disc jockey Alan Freed began a rhythm-and-blues show on a Cleveland radio station. Soon the audience grew and grew. Early attempts by white artists to cover R&B songs resulted in weaker renditions that bled the heart and soul out of the originals. Record producers saw the market potential and began to search for a white artist who could capture the African American sound.

Chuck Berry's songs about girls and cars hit a nerve with American teens and sent his star rising high in the early days of rock and roll. Sam Phillips, a Memphis record producer, found the answer in Elvis Presley. With a deep Southern sound, pouty lips, and gyrating hips, Elvis took an old style and made it his own. From Memphis, the sound spread to other cities, and demand for Elvis records skyrocketed. After the door to rock and roll acceptance was opened, African American performers such as Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard began to enjoy broad success, as well. White performers such as Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis also found artistic freedom and commercial success. I was born in 1946 and I remember the rock and roll movement as if it were yesterday. I loved all music even as a child but the music that excited me most was Rock n Roll!!! And that was what started the bands of today.

The music of the 1950's reflected the beginnings of major social changes in the world and in the US, especially. Rock 'n' Roll, R&B, and traditional pop ruled the charts while radio and television connected the country in our musical tastes and exposed the nation to a greater variety of artists and styles. Some of the first major superstars of music appeared from this decade with people like Elvis Presley dominating the airwaves and the minds of young girls.

Popular Genres: Traditional Pop, Rock 'n' Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Country, Jazz, Blues, Calypso, and Vocal Jazz.

Popular Artists: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Pati Page, Doris Day, Johnny Cash, Nat