Music Lessons from the Great Depression
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently reading Studs Terkel’s book, Hard Times
Today I read two more stories that I want to share with other musicians.
First, the story of a man named William Benton. This man made more money during the Great Depression than anyone else so far in the book. In the 1930s he started an advertising agency and was the first person to consider corporate sponsorship of radio shows. The idea spawned the “Maxwell House Show Boat,” “The Palmolive Beauty Box,” and Pepsodent sponsorship of “Amos and Andy.” Nobody had thought of this before and business at Maxwell, Palmolive and Pepsodent skyrocketed. As Benton says, “My income doubled every year…The Depression just passed me right over.”
The business started with nothing in 1929 and was worth half a million dollars by 1935. That would be roughly equivalent to $7.2 million today.
Benton makes a point of saying that it was the Depression itself that gave him the opportunity he needed. He was a young guy in the advertising industry and if it had been good economic times, no one might have ever listened to him. It was because things were going so poorly that he and his innovative ideas were given a chance.
I think two things here – first, it’s clear from what I’ve read in Hard Times that we will not be going through another Great Depression any time soon. When the Depression struck America there was no social security, no unemployment insurance, no Securities and Exchange Commission (no regulations on the stock market), and no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). These things were all put in place during the 1930s in reaction to the Depression and because of them, we will never have to go through anything that bad. But secondly, and more importantly, it’s clear that times of economic difficulty breed opportunity for innovative thinkers. What we need is new ideas! What we need is innovation!
Think, for instance on how much iTunes and iPods have changed the record industry. Now consider that iTunes was just launched in 2001 – only 7 years ago. Only 7 years! We can almost touch it, it’s still so close. It was only 7 years ago that Apple came up with one of the most innovative and effective changes to the record industry since humans started making and selling recordings. Now think – if it was only 7 years ago that this major change in the industry happened – what else is left to change? There must be new innovations out there that we haven’t thought of yet. We are not at the end of the realignment in the musician industry – we are in the MIDDLE of it! And economic times like this – where it seems like the sky is falling – these are the times that we need to rise up and think of these new ideas.
We need to think like William Benton. Fresh ways of thinking that shift paradigms, that change entire industries – like pairing brands (Pepsodent) and entertainment (Amos and Andy) in ways no one had every thought of before but seem obvious to us now. Who among us will be the next William Benton?
The second story is of jazz trumpeter Jimmy McPartland, who toured with Bix Beiderbecke and many others. McPartland lived by a very different philosophy than William Benton. As he says, “We were musicians, so what is money? That’s nothing. The important thing is life and living and enjoying life.”
McPartland believed that the government should see to it that everyone have a job – like things were with the WPA (a program that was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal that gave jobs and income to those that were out of work). As he says, “I’m a musician. Just pay me to do concert for nothin’. Let people listen for nothing,” and later, “You could give guys like me jobs as teachers, to teach jazz.”
It went largely unreported during the 2008 presidential campaign, but I didn’t forget it. Consider this, from the Obama fact sheet on the arts, still available at www.barackobama.com:
Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama and Joe Biden support the creation of an “Artists Corps” of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.
I’m personally very interested to see what happens with this Artist Corps idea.
McPartland toured around the country during the Depression and says “There were engagements in clubs and ballrooms throughout the country in the mid-Thirties…There was dough. Some people didn’t get jobs, but there was still plenty of money around.” It is amazing to me that during the worst economic disaster in the history of the modern world, when daily soup lines wound several times around the entirety of Central Park, when men would kill each other to lower competition for jobs, when 25% of the population was unemployed – musicians were still getting paid to play music.
The truth is that people need music. People will always spend money on music. It’s become a worldwide addiction to be constantly listening to music. It’s required for TV shows, commercials, websites, performances, special occasions – everything needs a song. While people may change how, where or when they spend money on music – they will still spend it, recession or not. Jimmy McPartland’s story shows us it’s there, and William Benton’s story tells us to keep finding new ways to get it.
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This is awesome, David. Very well said.
12/3/2008
music…….I hope so…..i am one.
As to “no 2nd great depression”….We were a nation of savers back then and an oil EXPORTING country. Socially more homogenous and cohesive. Much more agrarian (family farms/food fallback)
I’m sure you could go for days back then and not seen hordes of entitled, obese, tattooed, degenerates such that pass for “citizenry” in modern america….
When main street’s bailout doesn’t come (it can’t)…..watch out.
12/8/2008
These are great examples of forward thinkers.
Benton teaches us to innovate in hard times, when people will try anything. Steve Jobs was able to get the major labels blessings (albeit with DRM restrictions) for iTunes because the CD was declining so much. We just experienced the WORST decline in CD sales ever, and things aren’t going to get better. Now is a great time to grab people’s attention.
McPartland teaches us that music is a commodity. Even if people have no money, they still have an innate need for music. Jim Griffin introduced a concept that has been referred to as “music like water”. There are still MANY kinks to be worked out of these types of ideas, but the concept is fairly accurate.
But beyond recorded music, McPartland was really just talking about MUSICIANS as a commodity. It would be wonderful to see more grants available for qualified artists to pursue their craft. If I earned a grant to record my next album, I wouldn’t feel so strapped to make money from it. This is a very basic concept that is executed in other countries, yet any discussion of it in the US gets people on the defense about socialism and liberal agendas. Those are usually the same people who think music should be free. Hmm.
12/8/2008
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