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(return
to part 3)
When you say you're "tough
about the music," what do you mean?
I try to get artists to avoid clichés.
Michael Burks, who is certainly under the spell of Albert King,
and every minute in the studio I said to him, "Albert King
made those Albert King records. I want to hear Michael Burks."
Lil' Ed is rewriting songs for his new album because I said to
him, "This writing isn't as good as your best. This line
is a cliché. I've heard this line in a dozen songs."
Sometimes it will piss an artist off, but I'm sorry - I don't
want an artist to go into the studio unless they're going to
make their best, most original statement.
When you were making records in the '50s, when the whole vocabulary
of the blues was still unknown, you could go into the studio
and record "Sweet Home Chicago." Now, when so many
people know something about blues, you've got to work harder
to be original.
Some people think I'm a little bit Napoleonic, but I stand behind
my production. It doesn't mean I think everything I've produced
is brilliant, but I do think the records I produce are better
for the fact that I've challenged artists to do more than play
their clichés.
Could an Alligator Records
start up in today's perilous blues-biz climate?
I started Alligator at just the right time.
There was a lull in blues recordings - Chess had been sold, and
Vee-Jay was bankrupt, so there were a lot of great artists available.
There were second-generation artists like Koko Taylor and Albert
Collins who didn't have deals. There were also a lot more distributors
to choose from. There were many more independent retailers. Now,
we have to pay retail stores to take the records, and the coast
of admission is much higher.
There were no American blues magazines in which I could advertise.
Today, we buy full pages in all three American blues magazines,
we buy quarter pages in every large blues-society newsletter,
and we do a ton of advertising around our artists' live performances.
I made so many stupid mistakes when we first started, and if
we made those same mistakes starting out today, we'd be bankrupt
in our first year.
Does Alligator have a secure
future, given all the changes in the business environment?
The record business is going through a terrible
depression right now. Not a recession, a depression. And we're
feeling it here at Alligator.
I think Alligator has the most secure future of any blues label.
I won't lie; we've had the hardest year and a half in the past
20 years. And the reason is that retail record stores are running
scared. Album sales are down 8 percent from a year ago, and they
were down a year ago compared to the year before. Record stores
are returning anything that is not considered an "essential"
record. That goes for all types of music.
Alligator took a major loss last year. This year, we'll be lucky
to break even. Luckily for us, we have a very large catalog of
classic records that people will want to own forever. Records
like Hound Dog Taylor's first record and Koko Taylor's Earthshaker
and Force of Nature and the Showdown album and
the Johnny Winter records. Those are going to sell forever, and
they'll support the label through thick and thin. For labels
with a smaller catalog and fewer classic albums, it's going to
be very rough. Alligator will survive, but we're going to have
to be lean and mean to do it.
What we need to happen right now is for a major crossover artist
to emerge, either someone from the present group of artists or
somebody new coming up.
(continue
to part 5)
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