Life In Franklin, Tennessee…
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under Personal Blog
I made this video a couple of years ago. I took the photos during the last week of October on a beautiful autumn day.
Tags: franklin, historic downtown, leipers fork, pucketts grocery, tennessee
This Is How I Grew Up In WV…
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under Personal Blog
I shot this video at 6 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving in 2002. My family moved off of the family farm the day after Thanksgiving. I drove all night from TN to WV and when I arrived I though the fresh fallen snow was too beautiful not to video. This is the family farm as I remember it. Mom and dad moved just a 1/4 mile from the farm, but it has drastically changed over the past several years. I loved growing up here and I would like to share it with you.
Tags: back home again, barn, dad, dog, farm, farm house, marion county, mom, tractor, west virginia, worthington, wv
RCA Record Manufacturing - 1942
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under Personal Blog
I really enjoy listening to old records. I have a 1923 Edison Diamond Disc player and plenty of 78’s and hundreds of 33’s. I found these two videos on YouTube about the vinyl record manufacturing process in 1942. Although the process is not much different today, I think this vintage video captures the distilled essence of the time period.
Tags: 33, 78, diamond, disc, edison, pressing, rca, records, vinyl
Got… Vinyl?
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under SoGospelNews.com Articles
The economy has been the primary topic of conversation in America’s living rooms and in the media. Sales are slumping in nearly every industry. Many people are finding themselves in the unemployment line. The music business is no exception. It has been feeling this financial crunch for several years now. In 2007 CD sales decreased by nearly 50 percent. Last year, sales numbers fell another 50 percent from there. Despite horrific music sales, there were two areas of growth: paid downloads and vinyl record sales.
Most people are aware of the growth of digital music downloads. At this point in time, downloads are not a major source of revenue in gospel music. If trends continue as they have, this may likely change over the next 10 years.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) just released a figure stating that vinyl record sales doubled in 2008. Existing record shops in major metropolitan areas found vinyl record sales soaring and in response had to open new stores to meet the demand.
Audiophiles have long argued that vinyl sounds better than CDs and MP3s. Many secular artists are releasing albums on vinyl with a coupon for downloadable MP3s. This allows customers to have the vinyl record for home and a digital copy to burn on a CD or to load on a MP3 player.
However, vinyl does have its drawbacks. Records warp, are not easily portable and with every play, degrade slightly in quality. These limitations are minuscule for those who appreciate the aesthetic value and “fatter sound” a CD does not offer.
People listen to vinyl differently than CDs or MP3s. It is an active listening experience as opposed to an experience that is passive in nature. A vinyl record offers larger artwork and liner notes than a CD. Most MP3 downloads don’t even include artwork. If they do, it’s in a digital PDF format. iPods and other music players are convenient (and convenience sells), but they have changed the way we listen to music. iPods tend to provide background music for listeners during workouts, commutes and chores around the house. Listening to a vinyl record requires participation. After four or five songs, the record needs to be flipped over. The listener does not have the ability to make a 40 song playlist of favorites.
Record players are showing up in stores across the country. It has never been easier to transfer an old vinyl collection to CD with the USB equipped record players that have recently infiltrated the market. Teenagers are trading in iPods for their parent’s old record collections.
If this trend continues, it could be a great thing for the entire music business. Not only because the listening experience of vinyl is more interactive, but also because they are extremely difficult to pirate. There is much evidence that shows music consumption is higher than ever, however, the population as a whole is only purchasing about 50 percent of what it consumes. The rest is either traded or downloaded illegally. Will the vinyl trend continue? Let’s hope so. Maybe people will stop viewing music as a background for the mundane and realize the joy and satisfaction that comes with putting an LP on a turntable.
Steve Allen
http://www.squareonestudio.com
Questions, Questions, Questions…
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under SoGospelNews.com Articles
I usually try to answer a question in this article, but this month I would like to ask the questions and let you answer them. Feel free to answer as many or as few of them as you like. You can post your answer in the comments for the public to view. If you would prefer to keep your answers private, feel free to email them to me. My email address issteve@squareonestudio.com .
1. Is the health of gospel music deteriorating or is it stronger than ever?
2. Does a new independent artist have a better chance at succeeding today than 20 years ago?
3. Are artists making better records today than 20 or 30 years ago? Why?
4. Do you feel the southern gospel market is oversaturated?
5. How do you perceive small vanity labels (labels that are a “label” in name but lack resources for marketing, distribution, etc.)?
6. Which artist, past or present, stands out in your mind as an innovator?
7. How do you feel about secular artists recording Christian music and then marketing the product to the southern gospel audience?
8. What do you hope is next for the genre as a entity?
That is all of the questions I have for now. Thank you so much for participating.
Steve Allen
http://www.SquareOneStudio.com
Radio Airplay & Performance Royalties
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under SoGospelNews.com Articles
Radio airplay is the primary marketing outlet for gospel music. Stations pay for licenses from ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC and the proceeds are distributed to the songwriters and publishers. However, artists and labels have never been paid a performance royalty for over-the-air broadcasts in the U.S. It has been that way since KDKA first went on the air in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania back in 1922. However, that could change very shortly.
The United States along with North Korea, the Congo, and China are the few countries where radio broadcasters are exempt from paying royalties to artists. The U.S. stands out as the most industrialized nation without any system of artist performance royalties.
On December 18, 2007, the “Performance Right Act of 2007″ was introduced to congress. The legislation would correct a loophole in the copyright law that exempts AM and FM broadcasters.
An organization called “MusicFirst” that is comprised of many music industry associations such as the Recording Academy, American Federation of Musicians, and the RIAA are lobbying support for this legislation. They state that corporate radio has built a huge industry based on playing sound recordings without ever paying the artists. Technology has brought forth Internet, satellite radio, and cable - all which pay a performance royalty. MusicFirst wants corporate radio to be held to the same standards of its competitions and start paying artists fair market value for their music.
On the opposite spectrum of this issue is the National Association of Broadcasters. This organization holds the opinion that radio has been more than fair to artists because radio promotes artists to 232 million listeners every week. They view the Performance Right Act of 2007 as a new type of “tax.” In response they are supporting the “Local Radio Freedom Act” which is legislation that would prevent any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over-the-air.
I have tried to fairly represent both sides of this issue. I have made my living in the music business for the past 10 years. Prior to that I worked in radio for four years. I understand where both parties are coming from. However, here is my opinion on this issue. Commercial radio stations exist for one reason - to sell advertisements. That is it. Radio stations do not develop programming for the good of the people. Programming is designed to attract an audience because the stations need people to hear the commercials. What does a radio station do that doesn’t have an audience? They go out of business. A station needs listeners that hear the ads and then patronize the sponsors. More listeners result in higher ratings. Higher ratings translate into higher ad revenue. So how does a radio build a loyal audience that provides them with high ratings? They simply do it by playing an artist’s music. If a radio station could play advertisements 24 hours a day and still have a listening audience they would definitely do that. Everyone knows that cannot work. So, they attract an audience with a product (artist’s music) that they do not have to pay for.
If the Performance Right Act of 2007 becomes law, that means gospel artists and their respective labels will start seeing checks in the mail. A new organization similar to Sound Exchange, which pays owners of sound recordings royalties for Internet, satellite radio, and cable radio use, will likely be started.
Do artists benefit from radio play? Absolutely! Is it fair that radio stations can use our music to finance their business and not pay a royalty? Absolutely not! A fair royalty needs to be put in place. Performers need radio stations and radio stations need our music. Think of this as a co-op deal. Both parties need each other, but lets treat each other fairly.
For more information, here are links for further research:
http://www.musicfirstcoalition.org
http://www.nab.org
http://www.grammy.com
http://www.riaa.com
Steve Allen
Tags: performance right act of 2007, radio airplay, riaa, royalty
Music Business and the NFL
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under SoGospelNews.com Articles
Have you ever heard an artist on the radio or in concert and thought, “Why is this person singing?” I think that nearly every time I turn on Christian radio. I’m going to give you my honest opinion; most of the music that is in the marketplace is horrible. This problem manifests itself more often in gospel music due to the fact that anyone who can scrap up a thousand dollars can send a song to radio in hopes of cracking the charts (whatever that means). Then we wonder why CD sales have slumped 15 to 20 percent every year for the past five years. The reason is that we simply are not competing with other forms of entertainment anymore.
I had a gentleman recently tell me his hypothesis for the decline of music business revenue. He passed music off as nothing but an “old form of entertainment.” Let us look at another form of “old entertainment.” The NFL is still thriving. The NFL falls in the category of old entertainment however is has continually reinvented itself over the past few decades. In my opinion, music simply is not completing with other forms of entertainment.
The music industry will bounce back. Although the industry is not at its peak, I am thankful for this time. Everything in business is cyclical. Right now, especially in gospel music, the market is weeding out a lot of artists. The market is simply oversaturated. We are at a point where only the strongest will survive.
There are many artists who have a genuine call upon their lives to minister. However, there are many people who placed a call upon their own lives to minister the gospel. For whatever reason, people are simply fascinated with the music business. I have found over the years that people have an illusion of fame, power, and money that comes by being in the music industry. Those who are in it know that it is nothing but an illusion.
So before you decide to send another single out to radio or spend your hard earned money with some recording company that gives you a line-item budget that is padded to such an extent that you can use the excess to make a down payment on a house, consider why you do what you do. Are you called by God or are you called by man?
Here’s the shameless self-promotion. My name is Steve Allen. I produce records and I run a recording studio. Let me know if I can help you.
Steve Allen
Square One Studio
Tags: gospel music, Music Industry, NFL
Dottie Rambo - WSMV News Story
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under Personal Blog
May 11, 2008 was a very sad day. I got the news about the accident just before 8 a.m. that morning. Joel Key called me and asked me if I had heard the news and I was not prepared for what I was soon to hear. He told me that Dottie’s bus was involved in an accident and Dottie was killed. I was paralyzed. I was with her the previous Saturday night. Before I left she motioned me to her. She told me that she was so glad that our paths crossed and that she loved me. She motioned me to come closer and she whispered a few words in my ear before she headed to her bus and me to my car. Those were the last words I ever shared with her. I will always treasure that.
WSMV in Nashville did a great feature on the evening news the day of the accident. Thanks so much to Chris Tatum for his effort on this news piece.
Tags: chris tatum, dottie rambo, gaither, larry ferguson, wsmv
My Favorite Poem
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under Personal Blog
I am not sure why this poem came to the forefront of my mind tonight. It is past midnight and I am still at the office. I am tired and ready to end my day. However, I felt that I should post this.
I was first introduced to this poem my freshman year of high school by a teacher named Kevin Haugh. This poem has stuck with me through the years. Recently, I found out this this is also Berry Gordy’s favorite. Anyone that spends any time with knows that I am a big fan of Motown. So, I thought I would share this.
IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
–Rudyard Kipling
Building Relationships & Networking
Posted by Steve Allen | Filed under SoGospelNews.com Articles
For years, I have said that success in any area of life is dependent upon one’s ability to build and maintain healthy relationships. The bookstore is filled with self-help books that promise to teach us how to network so we can get a better job, a promotion, or a single that breaks into the top 80. I haven’t seen books on the topic of “cracking the gospel charts” (even though one might argue the charts are inherently “cracked”). The best book that I have discovered concerning people and relationships is How To Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Carnegie addresses several techniques in which we can meet other people’s needs, building relationships which in a perfect world would be mutually beneficial. Most people only look for a “connection”, by which they usually mean a casual acquaintance with a person of wealth or power who pulls a favor if one is needed. A relationship however, takes time to develop: it is a quintessential investment in someone other than yourself.
Let me tell you what drives me crazy… networking or “working the room” at the most inappropriate times and places. I mention this first because this is so prevalent in gospel music. Here’s my primary example: A FUNERAL IS NOT AN INDUSTRY EVENT! Please, don’t pass out your business card or give me your new CD while at visitation. I’ve seen this too many times. At Anthony Burger’s funeral, someone stopped Mark Lowry as he was walking down the aisle, and asked for an autograph. I was told that people asked for Ernie Haase’s autograph while standing at the casket of George Younce. I wasn’t there to see these breaches of courtesy, but I don’t doubt that it is true. A point could be made that these incidents involved fans who did not know appropriate behavior during a time of bereavement. This is sometimes true, but at Roger Bennett’s funeral, I saw someone to whom I had not spoken in years. I wanted to speak a few words to him, and then be on my way. As I approached, I could tell that he was in a conversation with someone. I did not want to interrupt, so I stood back for a few minutes. I could not help but over-hear portions of the conversation. A lady was trying to convince my artist friend to join some type of organization. How disrespectful!
Networking should be an enjoyable social practice that enriches our lives. Build relationships and forget about getting connections. Try getting to know someone without wanting something for yourself. It is amazing what people will do for you when you have an honest motive and pure intentions. Trust me: people know when you are just hanging around to see what you can get for yourself. That is what I call “maneuvering.” You know exactly what I am talking about, too. If you don’t, go to NQC next year and spend about three minutes just simply observing. It is like watching crabs in a barrel. I have a single word that describes people who are always maneuvering: “toxic”.
Here are a few things that I have learned help build relationships. First and foremost: listen. The classic bore is a person who always talks and seldom listens. Second: stop trying to impress everyone you meet. People know a true professional when they see one. If you’re not a professional yet, but aspiring to be one, just know that you do not have to prove all you know to everyone you meet. When I first moved to town, I had a seasoned producer tell me that it was fine to not always have all the answers. Do not act as If you know something when you don’t. Just know whom to call. That is called humility. Third: everyone seeks some type of validation. Freely give it to people. It took me years to realize that I wasn’t the only person doing good studio work. You have to be secure in yourself to admit that someone is good, or even better at something than you are. Lastly, don’t make occasions like funerals, weddings, or Sunday morning church about you. It is not the time or the place.
thank's for the interesting information...