Stories from the Edge of Music #49: MORE MUSIC IN PARADISE
At a music convention, there has to be music, right? Answer: well, not that much.
Music business people make up the worst audiences…
You’d think, at a music convention with 10,000 delegates that there’d be a lot of music. But at MIDEM, in the sea and sunshined south of France, there really wasn’t much — maybe one or two stars and some semi-private showcases.
And without argument, music business people make up the worst audiences for live performances.
I recall the response to James Brown, backed by his solid funk band, knocking themselves out at a MIDEM concert. Collectively, we watched with our arms folded, muttering the first thoughts that came into our heads: “He’s put on some weight…” “He doesn’t do the splits the way he used to do…” Three-quarters the way through his set, Brown finally got his audience to clap, mostly on time.
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The Godfather of Soul is late…
I may have told this story before, but it’s worth a repeat. The organization’s publicity team organized a press conference for Brown the following afternoon, but as 70 television, radio and print people were crammed into a meeting room, Brown finally arrived 90 minutes late.
A MIDEM functionary explained: “M’sieur, we are making a terrible mistake. We are sending a white limousine to pick up Mr. Brown, but he will only ride in a black one.”
But, I pointed out, Brown was coming from the Grand Hotel, which is literally across the road from the convention centre — he could have walked to the press conference, with a minder, in less than two minutes.
“M’sieur,” the MIDEM official said, “do you expect the Godfather of Soul to WALK?”
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A dinner for one?
The late Pegi Cecconi, representing Rush, Max Webster, and a bunch of other Canadian artists, was having a business meeting in the early evening at the Martinez Hotel bar.
An inebriated Canadian musician approached, mimed unzipping his pants, and asked, “Dinner for one, Pegi?”
She raised an eyebrow and immediately responded: “Child’s portion?”
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Off to Italy for a really good meal
Each year, Pegi arranged a visit to a lovely restaurant in Ventimiglia, an ancient border city in Italy. We travelled in a van — we christened it Le Pig Noir, and wrote its name on the dust-encrusted front of the vehicle. We were driven by the roadie for an English rock band whose van we used; we fed him but he was not allowed to drink.
On the way back to Cannes, we stopped for a brief beach picnic under cloudy skies. Pegi said she was not feeling well.
Back in Canada, she phoned me a week later. “My dog died,” she said.
“Worse, I’m pregnant.”
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Tori Amos: An artist with presence…
When Tori Amos released her first major label CD, there was a gathering in the Martinez Hotel ballroom. About 70 of us liberally helped ourselves to the free bar and — to put it mildly — got pretty rowdy.
However, such is Ms. Amos’ presence, the moment she walked into the room, red hair flying, and sat at the grand piano, we realized that we were fortunate to be in a room with such a star in the making.
She played half a dozen songs, and as drunk as her audience was, you could have heard a pin drop.
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Van Morrison is not having a good night
When Van Morrison appeared at MIDEM, with guitarist Richard Thompson as the opening artist, the concert was televised live across Europe and into Russia. To make this a grand occasion, organizers offered free tickets to a teenaged audience and gave the kids the best seats in the house, directly in front of the stage.
My friend Holger Petersen and I were shuffled into the back of the balcony, but we protested, pointing out that our expensive delegate badges entitled us to better seating. The French, bless them, love a scene, and we made one — and were eventually seated in the front row, surrounded by teenagers.
They hated Thompson, and whistled throughout his opening set — the Gallic expression of disapproval. Thompson looked confused, but carried on manfully.
Van the Man, however, got a standing ovation as he came onstage, and launched into an emotional, powerful, almost transcendental set. Three quarters of the way through, however, he broke a guitar string and a flustered roadie rushed out with a new guitar.
Alas, it wasn’t in tune, and Morrison lost it. Threw a towel at the keyboard player, shouted at the drummer, and strode offstage, regardless of the now-confused audience and thousands of international television viewers.
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Lionel Hampton teaches Chick Corea a lesson
In the mid-’70s, American big band leader Lionel Hampton played a concert in the lovely old theatre that was bulldozed to build the Palais des Festivals, where the Cannes Film Festival, MIDEM, and other conventions are held.
Known for his extravagant showmanship, Hampton grunted and sweated through an up-tempo set, playing vibes, piano and drums, albeit with a much smaller and less impressive band.
The young modern jazz star Chick Corea was Hampton’s special guest, and he hit the stage with an arrogant attitude made obvious by the look on his face and the way he walked. Settled at the piano, he started with a furious up-tempo number; he was going to show up Hampton as an old man past his best.
Hampton, in response, stopped grunting, stopped sweating, and proceeded — to use jazz terminology — to cut Corea’s sorry butt.
Moral: don’t mess around with the old guys — they know more and they’ve been doing it longer. Those hotshot young players need to better mind their manners.
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Can you turn a disco into a Texas bar?
For nearly 40 years, the state government in Texas has been running an arms-length organization called the Texas Music Office. Its purpose is to promote music made by Texan musicians, and spread their music around the world — and what better place to do that but at a massive international music conference.
So, in the early ’90s, the TMO planned a showcase for Texas artists at MIDEM. They rented a disco with a stage, over-the-top lighting and a massive sound system. They imported crates of Lone Star beer. And they hired Angela Strehli, Lou Ann Barton, Joe Ely and more to play.
What could go wrong? Answer: Just about everything. First, the bartenders would not serve the Lone Star beer — they gave everyone scotch and earned larger tips. Second, the house deejay insisted on playing — at high volume — disco tracks between the Texan artists.
This so upset me that I lost my temper and shouted at the deejay; he smiled but ignored me. Furious, I threw my glass of scotch on the floor of his booth (taking care not to damage the turntable or the soundboard). Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a very large bouncer moving toward me.
At the last minute, however, he lost me in the crowd, and John Martin (the British-born founder of the MuchMusic video channel in Canada) had a word with the bouncer, pointing him the opposite direction from where I was standing, still seething. John, an old friend, probably saved my life.
Joe Ely, one of the Texas musicians, had had a rough day. He’d been touring Italy and had a long and difficult delay at the border while French customs officers checked his musicians for drugs, examined the instruments and equipment, and searched the band’s van. He made it to the Texas showcase with less than half an hour to spare.
His set was well underway when he introduced a new song called “My Baby Thinks She’s French.” As he sang, a large basket was lowered from the ceiling, containing a beautiful young woman, wearing cowboy boots and a large Stetson hat, but otherwise stark naked.
Joe — totally surprised — forgot the lyrics, burst out laughing, and ended his set as the woman stepped out of the basket, smiled at him and, still naked, joined the audience.
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An expensive dinner in an art-filled restaurant
The Canadian delegation established a new tradition: on the last day of the convention, we would all go to a wonderful and very expensive restaurant in St-Paul de Vence called La Colombe d’Or.
The bar is decorated with two dozen Alexander Calder watercolours, and the dining room has several million dollars’ worth of masterpieces by Picasso, Braque, Leger, Chagall and Miro, among many others. Apparently, some of this art was acquired by the restaurant as the artists’ payments for staggeringly unpaid bar bills.
The other part of the tradition was that all the attendees, probably 20 of us, would put our credit cards on the table, each of us paying an equal percentage of the total bill.
I recall the look of horror on the face of Denise Donlon of MuchMusic, as the True North Records label boss, Bernie Finkelstein, ordered a $300 bottle of wine. On a $25. per diem expense allowance, her percentage of the total bill had been exponentially increased — her daily $25 had already been spent on a glass of house wine and a relatively inexpensive omelette.
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As we shiver in Canada, I still miss Cannes in the sunshine…
All these years later — I was last at MIDEM in 1981 — I still miss that event. After all, where would you like to be in the last week of January? Freezing in Toronto’s miserable winter, or living it up in the south of France?
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A LEFTOVER VIDEO LINK
I meant to share this video as part of my stories about the great songwriter John Prine. It’s a gem by my friend Laurianne Fiorentino, who lives in Arizona. This is the first of six songs you can find on YouTube — the lyrics of each one are made up of Prine song titles. Count ’em: there are 34 of John’s songs referenced on this video.
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…AND NEXT TIME
Talking of leftovers, to mark the 50th edition of “Stories from the Edge of Music,” we’ll empty the vault of pictures we meant to show you in previous Substacks, but for one reason or another we didn’t.
Imagine they’re leftovers in the fridge, and we have to consume them before they turn into science experiments.
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A FINAL WORD
Thanks for reading this; I hope you were entertained. Next time, fewer words and more pictures!
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