Lessons from the Old School
This week only, Pitchfork.tv is showing one my all time favorite music docs “Tom Dowd and the Language of Music”, an overview of the life and career of arguably the greatest music producer of all time. Even if, no especially if, you’ve never been interested in the production side of music, I highly recommend watching this film. It’s just over an hour and thanks to Pitchfork you can watch it for free. Tom Dowd is the guy behind records like “Layla”, “The Genius of Ray Charles” and “Respect” (both the Otis Redding original and the Aretha Franklin version), among countless others.
The most interesting aspect of the film though is the sense of community and mutual striving to make great music that existed at Atlantic Records and Stax in these days. Growing up as the record industry reached critical mass and began to rupture, we’ve become so accustomed to thinking of major labels as evil corporations that’s it’s enheartening to recall a time when the music business functioned as it should: developing artists, making great records and making money. While we search for new business models it’s important to remember there are still many lessons and examples from the past we can still follow, and the life of Tom Dowd is certainly one of them.
Tags: Aretha Franklin, Layla, Music Documentary, Pitchfork, Ray Charles, Record Producers, Tom Dowd