I watched the Harold Budd interview that Bill posted on this forum and it reminded me of the fickle nature of the arts. In general, you can succeed in the arts if you get a call from somebody like Brain Eno. But that rarely happens in real life. You have a better chance winning the lottery (two million dollar winners every week in Canada) than becoming the next pop star household name. So how do you increase your chances for success? I think you need two things: money and contacts. And it is better to have money than to have contacts because, in the end, you can always buy the right people you need for your project.
Harold was very lucky getting a call from Brian Eno. And so was Daniel Lanois lucky to meet Eno and work with him, because that led to producing U2, Robbie Robertson, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan. So luck is a great and unpredictable ingredient. But if you are unlucky and don't know people, it is great to have money to buy the right people. The music industry runs on money. In fact, there is a pecking order where the best producers will work with the best artists. Why? Because there is a big monetary return. This doesn't mean that Brian Eno wouldn't work with an unknown. But that is usually the exception.
So artists are usually ranked based on money return. Bill Nelson, Roger Eno, Harold Budd, etc. are not equal to a Taylor Swift or Elton John. Artists are defined by their niche and drawing power. And it is hard to break out of the niche the industry puts you in. Bill certainly gave it a go trying to write film scores and getting the producer of Crowded House. Roger Eno, Brian Eno's brother, will never do what his brother does. And many times the artists realize they just don't want to play the game or want to be in the higher money bracket. And so it goes...
But this just comes back to the original point of having money and contacts. Contacts may or may not work: e.g., Bill through knowing Roger Eno and Harold Budd, could try to get Brian Eno to produce his work. But if you didn't know Brian Eno and had a lot of money, then Brian Eno services may be bought straight out. So there is a pecking order in the arts and people rise and fall... and some rise again (think of Neil Young in the 90s). There is a pecking order everywhere in life. To break out of it you need two things: cash and contacts... preferably cash in the long run.
Please put this in the right forum if it isn't already.
I saw Stan Getz in a cruddy little bar on Church Street in Toronto where the prostitutes walk in and out. I was there with a friend and I can't remember if we were there to see Getz or not, but I definitely remember him bellowing at the bar tender to turn the hockey game down on the TV because it was too loud. I though "God Lord, you're suppose to be a legend... and here you are in this shithole." I guess some people don't care one way or the other because they started in shitholes and it's like home base to them. And he wasn't a young guy.
I remember falling asleep to Eno's "Music for Airports" while living in Toronto in my student days. Eno is definitely all over the music map. He left Roxy Music and then was doing his own music. Then he's working with Bowie and Fripp in Berlin; then big time producer in the 80s doing top commercial acts; then back to Bowie and Roxy Music in the 90s. When does he stop? I think there was almost a little exclusive club: Bowie, Ferry and Eno. He keeps coming back to those guys time and again. It's like he's saying, "We are the popular pioneers of art music." It seems to be the case with the general public too. So I think Harold Budd and Daniel Lanois were very lucky to break into his orbit and that gave them a lot of opportunity and exposure.
I use to collect instrumental compilation records in my student days and I could swear Harold Budd was on some of them. There was one record and it had a quote of Keats: "Truth is Beauty and Beauty Truth" or "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" and was a gray, sublime looking album. I still have it but my record collection is buried under the stairs and it is impossible to get at. But listening now to him everything seems so delicate. Not fragile -- like you could break it -- but just delicate. Even a forceful, loud sax seems delicate. Like quietude and solitude were mixed in with the sound to make it right for sleeping and thinking. There probably was a calm, soft spoken ghost that followed him around to give him that perfect poise. Hard to imagine it any other way.