addition to hearing I think I listen to
things differently than other people, it’s
something that all music producers and
sound engineers have to do. We have
to listen critically and understand the
emotional response of the musician your
recording while at the same time have
the foresight to cut, paste and edit things
together from what you are doing live
time in the studio with the artist.
ways to re-group and re-monetize the
industry so that musicians, composers
and songwriters can still get paid. The
situation now is yes you can download
music for free but it is stealing. Fifteen
years ago you would have never thought
of going into Tower Records and taking
an arm full of CD’s and walking out but
that’s exactly what’s happening now on
the internet.
Russ: In addition to playing and
recording you’re also a writer.
The record industry was unbelievably
slow in spotting that that was going to
happen and I remember those discussion
very well. The first downloading site
that popped up was Napster. Eventually
a major company bought them thinking
that if they owned the company it would
stop the problem but of course there’s
a smart kid in the Philippine’s who can
knock out a site the next day so the Genie
was out of the bottle and the industry
hasn’t recovered.
Chris: Yes, I write both words and
music. A friend of mine who works at
an advertising agency in London said to
me that I should write a book that gives
insider tips on what a person should
listen to if they like this particular song
or that particular opera. I thought it
was a good idea. He said to write an
introduction and he would send it to
a friend of his who runs Trans World
Publishers. In a few days I knocked out
the introduction of what the book would
be and did the chapter headings of what
I thought a book like that should have.
Trans World signed the book on the
spot and that was the start of my writing
career in 1991. My first book was called
“Get into Classical Music” and it was a
fun easy to read paperback that came out
with a CD so you could listen to things I
was referring to and then go and expand
your collection thereafter. That was
quite a big success and kept me in Jaguar
cars ever after. I followed that with “Get
into Opera” which was demystifying
opera and introducing people to it in a
user friendly way, same story, paperback
book with CD and then the next year I
wrote “Get into Jazz”. The books were
translated into 7 different languages
including Mandarin and Spanish so we
covered all the main languages around
the world.
Russ: How long would it take you to
write a book?
Chris: That’s an interesting question
really because all during that time I was
really busy producing records, it was
my absolute busy busy years. I limited
myself to a month and I would just take
that month out. The first one I went
down to my Uncle’s house out by the
coast in South England and was writing
two to three thousand words a day. It
was the same story for the other two
books, I just really focused for a month.
Russ: Last night with friends we were
discussing how so few people buy music
anymore now that you can download
most everything for free or you can join
a website like Spotify and pay a monthly
subscription fee. From your standpoint
being so entrenched in the music
business, what are your thoughts on this?
Chris: Well, the whole music industry
is in total free-fall at the moment and
I’m very fascinated by that and am
actively involved in trying to find
People’s ability to earn money in the
music industry now has been severely
hampered. Musicians who were selling
millions or tens of millions of records
in the 80’s and 90’s are ok but I f X\