[Dixielandjazz] Columbia Records - New York Times, October 31, 2012

[Robert Ringwald]

For Columbia Records, This Is How History Sounds
by Ben Sisario
New York Times, October 31, 2012
In the recorded-music business, most of the recent headline numbers haven't been
good. Sales are down, layoffs are up. Don't even ask how many people downloaded the
latest Katy Perry album illegally.
But for a project by Columbia Records in celebration of its own big number -- 125
years in business -- the label decided to take the high road by focusing on the broad
historical influence of the company and its artists, including Bob Dylan, Barbra
Streisand, Johnny Cash, Leonard Bernstein, Billie Holiday and Al Jolson, to name
just a few of its giants.
The centerpiece is "360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story," a book by the Princeton
historian Sean Wilentz, which will be published this week by Chronicle Books. A related
exhibition at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles opens on Nov. 7.
Mr. Wilentz, whose books include "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln"
and "Bob Dylan in America," met with Columbia executives two years ago, after first
being approached by Mr. Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen. They wanted a serious assessment
by someone outside the industry, at a relatively modest length of 30,000 words.
"They wanted a historian to tell the story of Columbia in the context of American
social and cultural history," Mr. Wilentz said recently. His condition was complete
editorial control, which he said was honored.
Rob Stringer, the label's chairman, said that after meeting with Mr. Wilentz, he
was not worried what kind of book would result. "He was reverential to the label,"
Mr. Stringer said.
Thirty thousand words came and went. Published at more than 300 pages -- and around
90,000 words -- "360 Sound" is just long enough to pass breezily through nearly every
important chapter of Columbia's history, while leaving plenty of room for hundreds
of delicious archival photos; Mr. Wilentz describes it as "the most erudite coffee
table book." (Perhaps he could have written even a little more: there are no fewer
than 15 pictures of Mr. Dylan and 13 of Bruce Springsteen.)
The deluxe version of the book also includes "Legends and Legacy," a flash drive
and accompanying book by the critic Dave Marsh with his selection of 263 tracks from
Columbia and its affiliated labels, from John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post March"
(1895) to Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (2011).
In "360 Sound" -- the title was taken from a Columbia slogan in the 1960s -- Mr.
Wilentz relishes telling the stories of some of Columbia's signature artists and
the visionary executives behind them. The best known of these is John Hammond, whose
run as a talent scout lasted half a century and helped bring the label Holiday, Bessie
Smith, Benny Goodman, Mr. Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Mr. Springsteen and, in the 1980s,
the blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.
"I listened to a lot of music doing this," Mr. Wilentz said in a lunch interview
on the Upper West Side, after ordering a sandwich that he neglected over most of
an hour. "I don't get to listen to a lot of music when I write about Andrew Jackson,"
he added, and appended a footnote, "Well, ‘The Battle of New Orleans,' maybe."
Columbia's history is entangled with that of the larger music industry, and some
of the most engaging parts of the book trace the early development of the business.
(For sticklers, the Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1889 but dates itself
from a predecessor, the American Graphophone Company, which started two years earlier.
Columbia is now part of Sony Music Entertainment.)
While some of the artists from the early 20th century are unfamiliar -- Bert Williams?
George Washington Johnson? -- the emerging industry's technological and legal crises
are strikingly similar to the situation in our own time, with patent wars, endless
litigation and a struggle between labels and radio networks, the tech start-ups of
the era.
Columbia was at the center of several important technological developments, like
the long-playing 33 1/3 record, which it introduced in 1948. The LP heritage helped
lure at least one marquee act. Marty Erlichman, Ms. Streisand's longtime manager,
told Mr. Wilentz that in 1962 she got a better offer from Capitol Records but went
with Columbia, partly because of its attachment to the format.
"They weren't as dogmatic about having a hit single," Mr. Erlichman is quoted as
saying. "They were an album company."
Perhaps inadvertently, "360 Sound" also documents some of the less fortunate peculiarities
of the music industry. In reprinting a famous photograph of the Byrds walking down
Avenue of the Americas in the mid-1960s, for example, the book's editors used a doctored
version that removed the band members' cigarettes. A spokeswoman for Columbia's 125th-anniversary
project said the shot could have been retouched for any reason over the years and
that it was chosen unwittingly, with no intention of censorship.
For Mr. Wilentz -- who said he was not involved in photo selection -- a bigger issue
was how a historian should handle an industry that these days seems to be in constant
tumult. "I have to admit that I wondered, am I writing a book or am I writing an
obituary?" he said.
Columbia is currently at a business high point, with a market share of 8.6 percent,
more than any other label. It owes much of that success to Adele's album "21," which
Columbia releases in the United States through a deal with Adele's label, the British
independent XL.
Keeping in mind Columbia's many near-death experiences over its 125 years, and the
industry's history of struggles over technology, Mr. Wilentz said he was reluctant
to write Columbia into the grave.
"The recording industry was supposed to have died any number of times," he said.
"It was supposed to die with radio, it was supposed to die with the jukebox, and
it never dies. They reason is that they manage to adapt, in technology and in business.
I was not willing to write them off completely."
If Columbia had not been having a good run on the charts lately, though, he might
never have had to make the choice.
"We thought that we had enough positive coming out that it would not be a grisly
ending," Mr. Stringer said.
"If we had no record in the charts," he added, "I'm not sure we would have commissioned
it."
__________
Slide show:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/10/31/arts/music/20121031-columbia.html


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street 
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