[Dixielandjazz] Woody Herman Broke:

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/1/05 7:59:53 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
russg at redshift.com writes:

> Broke, sick and being evicted from his apartment at which time that his
> daughter, I think it was his daughter, asked for help from the public who
> admired him so much.  He died a short while afterwards.
> 
> He had made a ton of money but his manager had stolen and mismanaged it to 
> zero
> 


Hi  Russ & All:

> While this is a distinct possibility, Russ, the bottom line unfortunately 
> for Woody and many other musicians who chose not to be business men or 
> recognize that their band and music was indeed a business, suffered the same fate.
> 
> Most such bands that I have encountered in forty years of the business got 
> ripped off by such managers because "they" chose those people to manage their 
> affairs without giving much thought to the managers credentials or checking 
> his past history in managing other artists careers, and or did things behind 
> the mangers back or directly against the managers advise.
> 
> There are as many wannabe managers and agents as there are musicians folks, 
> and just because they have a business card that says that is what they are 
> does not make it so, any more than a guy who walk into a music store and buys a 
> trumpet because he heard a Louis Armstrong recording and wants to be a 
> Trumpet player is a real musician.
> 
> Most such managers get there by being the van or bus driver or roadie or 
> brother in law, wife of the band leader, etc., because the band leader does not 
> want to deal with the business side and thinks they have someone they can 
> trust to handle the money.
> 
> If you want to see the same scenario magnified, check out the history of 
> Lottery winners and where they are five years after winning the lottery.
> 
> Musicians are often very vulnerable people and taken advantage of by record 
> Labels, Publicity agents, managers, and agents and ASCAP and BMI and the 
> Library of Congress, PBS. Arts Councils and many other diverse "HELP" 
> organizations willing to "Help the artist" as long as there is sufficient cash-flow to 
> pay themselves and their expense to deliver such HELP.
> 
> If you do not take the time to learn and understand the basics of business, 
> then, how can you ever know if the manager or agent you engaged is competent 
> to handle your business for you?  You can't and such artist are the ones who 
> more than likely get ripped off the worst and give the managers and agents in 
> the business a bad reputation.
> 
> A lot of it also comes because the artist is such a bad business person that 
> they do not take sound business advice from the manager or agent and will do 
> just anything to get on a stage and play, and after a while even the 
> professional manager or agent will realize that his client is on a self destructive 
> career path and they cannot stop it.  Unfortunately they are the ones who 
> eventually take the bad rap for the bad decisions of the artist who squandered 
> the money that the manager or agent made for him in the first place.
> 
> Some of these very gifted and talented artists tend to do it over and over 
> again no matter how many breaks they get in the industry.  Take it from a guy 
> who has been there and knows it first hand many times.  Many Artists are 
> simply not manageable.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Tom Wiggins

 





> 
> Russ Guarino, also a clarinet player but not successful enough to fall very 
> far.
> 
> ALSINGERPRESENTS at aol.com wrote:
> 
> >I would guess it's a given  that most everyone knows Woody died 
> broke.,sadly
> > al
>