like and why did you decide to move
on to the recording side of the music
industry?
Chris: Playing for the London
Symphony Orchestra was a dream
come to for me. Everyone around me
was in their 50’s and 60’s so I felt very
fortunate. At the time they were the “goto” symphony for doing move scores.
During that time we did several Star War
movies, E.T., all of those John William’s
big orchestral scores and I was fascinated
by the whole recording process and we
were recording a lot in those days for the
big classical labels. I got friendly with
the guys at Abbey Road studios which
is where we were normally making
those records and decided to take a
sabbatical from playing for about six
months, bought some equipment and
learned how to use it. I used to hang out
at Abbey Road for long periods of time,
watching, listening and learning. I got
my break due to a chance meeting at a
dinner party with a guy who owned a
record label, he invited me to make a
series of 20 records featuring the London
Symphony Orchestra. Again going full
circle really from being the novice young
boy in the orchestra to 8 to ten years later
making a major series of recordings with
them.
I was working simultaneously for
labels like EMI, Decca, Warner Classics,
Sony and over the years I’ve made
over 400 records. In that heyday when
CD’s were selling in large quantities we
would often make 2 to 3 CD’s a week. It
was a really busy full on time and I was
traveling all over the world.
I ultimately invested in 3 mobile
recording units. I had one in London,
one in Dublin because I was doing a
long series of recording for the National
Symphony Orchestra and one in New
York so I just used to jump on a plane
with a flight bag filled with microphones
and my headphones.
Russ: You started your own recording
label, when did this happen?
Chris: It was actually during this time
that it dawned on me that I was making
so many records I should be doing it for
myself so I set up my label and named it
Black Box Music. We quickly grew the
label over 2 to 3 years to the point where
we were releasing 3 to 4 records a month
and the catalog was up around 100 titles.
We had distribution in 27 countries. I
was doing a lot of traveling visiting our
distributors and it got to be too much so
I elected to sell the label to the Sanctuary
Group which was a large independent
label in London whose roster was very
diverse. They had a Rock division which
handled groups like Iron Maiden, Gun’s
and Roses and doing big touring events
with really big Rock Bands. They also
had a middle of the road label and then a
classical label which I ended up running.
After a couple of years we brokered a
deal and now Black Box is owned by
Universal Music which is the biggest
musi