The largest chain retail store for music CDs/DVDs, etc., Tower Records, is going out of business. While in the short term this means some great bargains on really cool music, in the long term this in an indication of changing technologies and delivery systems for music and entertainment. This is a direct result (in my opinion) of the success of Itunes and other online download sites. CDs may be soon going the way of your old vinyl records. By the way, I just purchased a CD that I had previously purchased as an digital download-there is a difference in that the MP3 is missing some fundamental frequencies. This is probably not a big deal on a Justin Timberlake song, but you could sure hear the difference on Canadian bassist Alain Caron's CD.

At the same foray into Tower Records, I picked up the current issue of Ron Garant's excellent BASSICS magazine and read an interview with Lee Sklar. Lee, everyone's favorite studio maven with thousands of sessions to his credit, related how he is now spending 8 months a year on the Road with folks like Lyle Lovett and working with his own Barefoot Servants band. When queried about studio work, he opined that the days of 3 sessions a day, 6 days a week in Sunny LA were long, long gone and that the session scene in Nashville where he had been known to camp out for 2 weeks at a time doing album projects in the 80s were just as dire.

That evening I worked as a bassist in a function band in my tuxedo. The drummer was one of the top-call crew of Memphis Musicians who had moved to Nashville in the 70s and had tracked with Dusty Springfield, Dobie Gray, Jerry Jeff Walker and Alabama. The trumpet player had been a staff arranger and multi-instrumentalist for Atlantic Records and even played bass on John Prine's first record for Asylum Records (a certified Classic Folkie recording). There we were all working the same private party.

Clearly, the business model for the Music Industry is in the midst of a major cataclysm according to some viewpoints. Where once central sources of income like The Big Record Company or The Big Studio Scene ruled for the lucky and talented few, we now see a splintering of these monolithic entities. It's as if the Hollywood Movie and Entertainment Juggernaut has disintegrated to be replaced by scrappy regional film scenes. Ironically, one of the largest distributors of music at this time is the indie CD Baby site.

What does all of this mean? I think it was brought to my attention by a friend of mine, a fine drummer who also owns a top-shelf recording studio in Franklin, TN. We were working a private function playing Jazz with a quartet and I asked him his opinion of what is the future for musicians. He replied that the future was live performance and personal interaction with fans and listeners. With the disintegration of the large production, supply and distribution chains and the realignment of smaller, more intimate ways of selling and marketing music the responsibility is back in the hands of the players, writers, and all of those scrappy small indie labels (almost back to the regional recording scenes many of us Old Timers grew up around).

As bassists, the same rules apply. A young player today may not be graduating from Music School to relocate to LA or Nashville and become the top call session cat. When folks like Pino Palladino are touring and working as band members with The Who and The John Mayer Trio, clearly the old role of the session player with his studio tan and 10, 2 and 6 o'clock sessions is not what it once was. However, if you can be very versatile and cut virtually any gig on either bass (electric or acoustic) there seems to be a ton of live work interspersed with sessions, teaching, and production/writing work available. The key, as I stated in my last column, is to do many things well and by combining the incomes and work create a career.

It's an exciting proposition, and while we may not enjoy the killer studio careers of Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Lee Sklar, Will Lee and so many others a lot of interesting options are available. Like any major change it is the best of times for those who can see the potential in change and the worst for those who cling to the old ways of doing things.

Peace and Low Notes,
Roy C. Vogt
Nashville Bassist
Bass Instructor, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

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