The Business of Music - Lesson #1
It wasn't until I met this fellow that I began to learn about how the music business really works
I’m taking a break from my Gate Lépine stories so I can spend some time with another Canadian character. Bob Harris has been in my life since 1981. Our long friendship weaves up and down and all around, sort of like a kaleidoscope. That makes this a 2-part story. It has a beginning but thankfully he’s still alive so I don’t know what the ending will look like.
He was a guiding light in the very early days of Whiskey Jack. When we met Bob, Whiskey Jack was made up of 4 young men with virtually no music business experience. Each day was a lesson in managing and booking a professional music group. We woke up each day with a strong desire to make music and a ton of naivety thrown in for good measure.
Whiskey Jack was the first of many of my forays starting up a small business. My business partner and bandmate was John Hoffman, a man and mandolin player who was much smarter than me. He brought a good supply of common sense, smarts and a strong work ethic. My work ethic didn’t kick in until I stopped smoking weed, a motivation-killer if ever there was one.
Our two side-kicks in the band were Bob McNiven, a talented singer/songwriter guitar player and Chip (Greg) Street, an award winning bass player. When Bob Harris entered our lives, we were a floundering quartet achieving some success in spite of ourselves.
Our ignorance was an asset. We didn’t know what was needed to be a success in the music business. We just did it.
A perfect example of this was the night we met Bob. This would be our first lesson from Bob Harris on how to succeed in the music business.
In the early 1980’s, a group of Canadian country music musicians found themselves seconded at a festival site in a rural community in Northern Manitoba, a virtual “middle-of-nowhere”. The name of the event, The Boggy Creek Call of the Wild Mountain Music Festival on Duck Mountain, pretty much describes the setting.
This would be Whiskey Jack’s second appearance at the festival so we were privileged to be given bedrooms in the main lodge, a huge home built for, and by the organizer, Lewis Kazalitz. Lewis was the classic hillbilly from Tennessee.
Late one night, the lodge was quiet, all of us snoring away in anticipation of the festival’s first show the next day. We heard the unmistakable roar of a diesel engine in the yard, the first of a few buses delivering bands from across the continent.
At some point, I was awakened by a man’s voice (Bob Harris) grappling with the land line in search of a long distance operator. Over the next few minutes, as his voice got louder and louder, it was clear his band, Lonestar Cattle Company, was in one of the tour buses parked outside. As the band’s manager, Bob had other concerns to attend to. It was clear the situation was desperate.
Overhearing the conversation, everyone in the house was laying in bed, now awake, listening to Bob appeal to agents in search of a gig to replace one that had cancelled at the last minute.
For the next few minutes, I listened to Bob plead, argue, sell, and inquire asking booking agent after booking agent, “don’t you have anything available?”. It was his determination, perseverance and doggedness that stayed with me, something I needed to see in action. “So this is what it takes” I thought.
This band, based in Vancouver, was a successful country music recording artist in search of a gig and the going was tough. It was not going to be handed to them. If they were to replace the cancelled show, it would be because one man got on the phone and kept dialing until he succeeded.
That was lesson number 1. Lesson # 2 coming up.