There must be nothing quite so daunting as standing in the wings, alone and ready to face high expectations.
All of us have experienced what it’s like to be the main event. The stakes can be small, as in a presentation to a class. Or they can get quite large, if hundreds or potentially thousands are interested in what you have to say or sing.
We should reserve special appreciation to performers who are essentially solo acts, carrying the weight of an anticipated event on the strength of their singular effort. Among other challenges, there must be nothing quite so daunting as being a singer, standing in the wings, ready to perform songs that everyone thinks they already know. Pyrotechnics and backup singers can help bale out a weak pop performer. But most audiences are sophisticated enough to detect the difference between the real deal and a performance that seems less than authentically live.
Producer John McClure had clearly not counted on the slow humiliation of Carreras
The opening of West Side Story a few days ago in New York reminded me of a lonely moment for a performer singing the same show in 1984. The Spanish opera star Jose Carreras was in RCA’s New York studios with other singers and an orchestra recording Leonard Bernstein’s score of the musical for the prestigious Deutsche Gramophone label. Of course no one less than the composer himself was on hand to conduct. Bernstein had never had the chance to lead a cast through the music of his show.
The label apparently thought that it would be a nice touch to make a video of some of the studio work as the tracks were carefully laid down. But producer John McClure had clearly not counted on the slow humiliation of Carreras trying to sing Something’s Coming as the teenage Tony. Carreras simply couldn’t get the tricky rhythm woven throughout the score, one that was second nature to Bernstein. Sitting in the control room, McClure takes his own lumps from the maestro.
Take after take is botched and increasingly registered on the face of a frustrated Bernstein. Not only was Carreras’ diction alien and too formal for the Hell’s Kitchen character, but his execution of the dotted-note rhythms was blocky rather than the “hip.” Classical orchestras and singers generally have a hard time performing the looser and more improvisational style of American pop and jazz. And this was surely Bernstein’s version of jazz.
People looking at the clip on YouTube at the bottom of this piece will find a singer from a different cultural and musical heritage whose ear was apparently never trained to hear generic syncopation that dominated American music when Bernstein wrote his score. It wasn’t that the music was supposed to swing. But it needed a kind of breathless spontaneity that was nonetheless in perfect time. Had Carreras grown up listening to Mel Torme or Sammy Davis Jr., he probably would have been fine.
The program that aired on PBS raised the ire of many who thought Bernstein was being purposefully difficult. I don’t see that. But we do see what happens when a label and conductor miscast a piece in order to have a big name to splash on their album cover.
Carreras has gone on to have an impressive career in the operatic realm he has so easily mastered.
Think of a restaurant you’ve stumbled in to where it turns out that all of the staff are trained in intellectual property litigation. Get ready to argue over the amount of the tip.
Research on a book project has recently taken me to the far and cavernous precincts of music licensing, with topics like copyrighting songs, payment to play music in businesses, and collecting royalties from others who perform ‘covers.’ I have only one word for the experience of wading in to this byzantine subject: Yikes! My advice is that if you have the urge to sing in the shower, for your own good it would be good to do it sotto voce. Anyone could be listening. And you could be in even more hot water for not clearing the song with the publisher, a record company, or the performance rights organization that represents the songwriter.
No wonder there has been a spate of recent stories about the questionable mental health of musicians trying to survive within the music industry. It’s an enviable goal to build a career in music. But it is clearly not for the faint of heart. Think of a restaurant you’ve stumbled into where it turns out that all of the staff are trained in intellectual property litigation. It may not be your best meal. And the tip will be a matter of contention.
All of these is both a surprise and a disappointment, since music remains one of the happier experiences of living our lives. It’s little wonder that the legendary Quincy Jones–the composer, musician and world-class producer–thinks of the business side of his work as a “disaster.”
Taylor Swift has recently been doing battle with her record label and publisher, Big Machine. They own her masters and the copyrights to most of her older music, and she wants them back. With some justification her label argues that they invested heavily in her when she was a young teen starting out. But now, buying back the rights to her music outright–if she succeeds–with probably run into a few hundred million dollars. In the meantime, she’s released a music video to torment her music-mogul opponents, Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta.
To be sure, Ms. Swift will land on her feet. She has loyal and vocal fans. And it’s certainly easier to admire her as a performer than a relatively faceless investment firm, the Carlyle Group, which has an interest in Big Machine. In addition, music lovers also love to hate record labels. It seems like it has always been that way at least since the days of Napster. The big music groups that own the labels are often seen as taking over copyrights representing the labor of their very human musical “partners,” only to fail to deliver the promotion and success they promised in exchange.
Swift has obviously done well with Big Machine, but she wants more control of what and where she performs. However, a more typical case is perhaps the jazz/classical cellist, Zoe Keating, who is continually underwhelmed by her annual royalty statement from Spotify–now the largest streamer in the music business. According to The Guardian, in 2018 she received all of $0.0054 per play from the streaming service. Still, Spotify complains that they can’t make any real money.
It’s obvious only the biggest mega-stars receive royalties sufficient to live on. Most need to tour relentlessly, where ticket and incidental sales of extras can net enough income to get by.
Many of us are fascinated by this industry because its products are often so great. But it seems to resemble something like a big and colorful aquarium: better to enjoy it from the outside than to swim with the sharks inside.
