How tough is it to get a book
published on the subject of African Americans' presence (or lack of it)
in country music?
Perhaps the better question, in an era of disappearing
bookstores, is "How tough is it to get a book published?"
Period.
Self-publishing, vanity-publishing and/or, most recently, e-books have
somewhat eased the process, but a commercial project desires a
commercial publisher; ideally one with a publicity department that
knows how to promote the book and actually does so. (My biggest
mistake as a first-time, commercially-published author was to assume
the publisher would promote my book if only because it was part of its
book contract with me.)
Until self-publishing took off, major publishers were an author's best
hope to make the big bucks. University presses traditionally
don't pay big writers' royalties though, when commercial book
publishers have no interest in a project, being published by a
university press DOES suggest a book is scholarly in nature.
Every so often the subject matter comes up for literary scrutiny, so
I'll be interested to see if Diane's research breaks any new ground.
****
The Country Music Association
wants to spin scalping and/or defrauding of its 2013 Music Fest
ticket-buyers so as to blame the victim. Shame on those who don't know
to buy exclusively from those licensed to sell tickets and all of that.
Yet the CMA
continues its annual exercise of undermining its credibility by
obfuscating statistics and, most recently, actual ticket sales.
The trade association claims that in 2013 its summer event attracted
80,000 attendees. Assuming this figure truly represents a claim
of 15% increase in attendance from 2012, is this once again
"aggregate attendance?" Not all ticket-holders wanted, or were
otherwise able, to attend all four days of the event.
And how many Tennessean
subscribers and newsstand purchasers chose to redeem (or scalp) the
free, in-ad, one-day Music Fest pass available to those who purchased
the June 4, 2013 edition of the newspaper?
****
I'm all for
entrepreneurs and for making lemonade out of lemons, but those who
don't buy into hype, let alone unconditionally embrace it, may have
reason to believe JO DEE MESSINA is not her own best publicist.
As an "older," though established, female artist (Messina turns an
ancient 43 in August), Jo Dee has two strikes (not counting her time on
Curb Records) against
her, courtesy of ageist and sexist Music
Row. These encumbrances hardly make Messina a record label
priority.
So it may not be surprising that Jo Dee, always an independent, though
ebullient, spirit, has joined the ranks of artists who are bolting from
the majors and putting out their own product. What is
news is that Messina is using Kickstarter to finance My Time, Our Music.
"I wanted to find a way do to a project that involves the people," Jo
Dee explains, adding "We could do it ourselves, but I thought it would
be fun if we got the people involved."
****
Less than a month
after my first visit to the WILLIE NELSON AND FRIENDS MUSEUM(hey, I was as guilty as a New Yorker who's
never seen the Statue of Liberty), I returned June 3, 2013, once
again at the invitation of CLAIRE
RATLIFF, to yet another stellar event: a "private reception and
preview of new exhibits in this large private collection of very
personal memorabilia from traditional country-music stars... including
new exhibits with career and personal memorabilia from GEORGE JONES... KENNY ROGERS, DOTTIE WEST, LEFTY FRIZZELL, DAVID FRIZZELL and SHELLY WEST."
What's new with JOHN SCHNEIDER? (Disclaimer: I wrote
Schneider's first MCA Records bio and, during a different point in
time, interviewed him for Country Song Roundup.)
John recently recorded a CD in Nashville, staying around long enough to
play one of the city's clubs. Schneider tells LELAN STATOM, "As far as I know, all of the people
I pissed off when I quit country music all those years ago have died,
so they aren't around to be upset about it anymore... In case you don't
realize it, I had a bunch of number one songs way back when..."
