Dreaming Out Loud by Bruce Feiler

Author:Bruce Feiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

TEN

THE PARTY

In Nashville, you can tell a lot about the status of artists’ careers by the types of parties their labels throw for them or that they throw for themselves. On a warm day in early spring, MCA Records and MCA Publishing threw what would turn out to be one of the more pivotal parties of the year for Wynonna Judd, whose first single in two years, “To Be Loved by You,” had just limped to number one on the country singles chart.

The party started out unexceptionally enough. The four hundred or so regulars on the Music Row party circuit eased their Range Rovers and BMW 750iLs into the valet lane of Trilogy Restaurant, slid their cellular phones into their pockets, and slipped into their most practiced expression of casual self-importance. “Oh, hi!” Kiss, kiss. “How are you? Love those boots!” Step back and admire. “Hey, congratulations on your artist reaching the Top 20…” Lovingly touch the arm. “Yes, that’s right. We just went gold…” Demurely smile. “Sure, we sold double platinum last time, but you know how tough it is right now…” Raise the eyebrows, grimace a bit. “Oh, no. I’m not worried. For me, it’s all about the music…” Lean forward, put hand over the heart. “Well, then…” Peer around anxiously, pretend to spot a colleague, head directly for the bar.

The process of hyping a recording artist—to the media, to radio, and to the all-important industry buzz machine—is a tradition that goes back generations in Nashville. For much of that time, it was a fairly casual operation. “Tammy Wynette would have a gold record,” Bill Johnson at Sony told me, “and we’d decide to have a party. We’d call the producers, the managers, a few members of the press. We’d all gather in our conference room with a few beers and bottles of Jack. Tammy would come in, she’d know everybody, and we’d just sit around and talk.” Not surprisingly, the only party of any grandeur that anyone seems to remember was one held at the now-defunct Spence Manor Hotel when the Outlaws’ album became the first Nashville recording to receive platinum status.

The attention to hype slowly built in the 1980s when more money started flowing into Nashville and when labels started realizing that, when done properly, stroking works. More importantly, when everybody else is doing it, stroking is required. The first target for propaganda, of course, was radio. Labels began arranging so-called showcases—essentially aboveboard payola—in which they fly radio programmers to exotic locations (Lake Tahoe, Key Largo) and pay for them to play golf and get massaged during the day, then get drunk and listen to music at night. The second target for seduction were voters on award shows. In 1983, a minor scandal erupted when a Sony blitz to encourage members of the Academy of Country Music to vote for its artists actually resulted in a sweep of the show. A third target for promotion was the press. “I’m sorry to say this, but I started it,” said Susan Levy, formerly a publicist at MCA.

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