Lost Highway: A road to success
Joe Gross
American-Statesman Staff
Luke Lewis can sum up the idea of Lost Highway Records in fewer than 25 words: "Singer-songwriter driven. Not radio reliant. Artists with a proven foundation so we wouldn't have to build the label from scratch."
It's the day after the Grammys, and two Lost Highway artists walked away with awards. Johnny Cash won "Best Male Country Vocal" for "Give My Love To Rose" from "American IV: The Man Comes Around," a gold album that will likely go platinum in a few months. Willie Nelson won "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" for "Mendocino County Line" from "The Great Divide," his latest studio album. (Nelson joins Lucinda Williams, John Eddie, Tift Merritt and the Jayhawks tonight at the Austin Music Hall as part of the BMI/Lost Highway SXSW showcase.)
Lewis is one of the most powerful men in country music. As the chairman of Universal Music Nashville, he oversees a group of labels that includes MCA Nashville (George Strait, Lee Ann Womack), Mercury Nashville (Shania Twain, Terri Clark) and Lost Highway. Which means he's in charge of labels that can, as Lewis puts it, "move tonnage" and garner critical acclaim.
He's also well liked. Says songwriter David Baerwald, "Luke isn't like any other record executive you've ever met. The man has enormous personal charisma." And this is coming from a guy who parted ways with Lost Highway earlier this year after his album went nowhere fast.
But no matter how charismatic the guy at the top is, all great record labels are selling you an idea: an idea about music, an idea about the artists, an idea about yourself.
So what's the idea behind Lost Highway?
Successful debut
To millions of CD buyers, Lost Highway is the label that put out the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.
Which is good and bad. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. In 2000, after a couple of years of thinking about the thing, Lewis decided to form the Lost Highway imprint with talent manager Frank Callari as head of A&R.
"We had been talking about having a full service label in Nashville that was a quote-unquote 'country' label," Callari says, meaning a label that would focus on country and roots music minus the usual Nashville gloss.
Callari was already managing what would become Lost Highway's key acts: former Austinite Lucinda Williams, already on sister label Mercury; former Whiskeytown frontman and budding alt-country sex symbol Ryan Adams and talented newcomer (and potential alt-country sex symbol) Tift Merritt. Mercury Nashville had two more alt-country type singers, William Topley and Kim Richey, who he knew would make more sense under the brand-building banner of Lost Highway.
The name was lifted from a Hank Williams song ("Timeless: A Tribute to Hank Williams" was an early Lost Highway project). The first release, in December 2000, was "O Brother Where Art Thou?"
Which was a commercial smash (more than 7 million sold) in a lousy year for record buying. Which won four Grammys, including album of the year. Which many said pointed to the existence of an adult pop music marketplace that wasn't being served. Suddenly, this niche shelter for singer-songwriters had a huge hit, including the popular single, "Man of Constant Sorrow."
Lewis says "O Brother's" massive success best serves as a reminder that anything is possible, rather than as some sort of business model. "There's no question that 'O Brother' gave us an indication of how many passionate music freaks are out there, but I don't think it's model for anything," he says. "The truth of the matter is it was word of mouth. It did have a film to drive it, but many people just discovered that record on their own."
The idea of success
Still, no record label worth its salt will simply give itself over to the vagaries of the marketplace. Ben Klein, Lost Highway's senior vice-president of sales and field marketing, is the label's numbers man. Thrilled as he was by "O Brother," he's prouder of the follow-up, "Down From the Mountain." That record accompanied a small-scale documentary by legendary rock documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, rather than a feature film, but it went gold anyway. "That one was purely about the music," he says.
Klein explains that there's a sliding scale for success at Lost Highway. A relative unknown such as Tift Merritt is judged differently than a Ryan Adams, who has sold about half a million albums.
Merritt's "Bramble Rose" sold more than 50,000, Klein says. "She's the classic example of artist development. We've increased her profile a thousand times over, and I think she's one hit song away from being a gold act," he adds.
"They've just given us a lot of support," Merritt says from her North Carolina practice space. "I've found a safe haven in Lost Highway."
John Eddie, who opens tonight's showcase, is an experienced songwriter without a national profile. Coming up through the New Jersey bar scene in the '80s, Eddie was smiled upon by Bruce Springsteen and was signed to Sony, which released two of his records, and then Elektra, which never released his third and tied him up in the courts for years. After self-releasing two more albums, Eddie signed last year to Lost Highway, which believes his R&B/bar band style could reach a wider audience.
"John Eddie has a fan base in the Northeast and is a great live performer who loves to work," Lewis says. "He's also a gifted songwriter with years of experience. That, combined with many supporters at AAA radio, makes him a good bet."
Lucinda Williams, obviously, is an entirely different case. Her new album, "World Without Tears," arrives in April and is considered a tent pole of this year's release slate. But she, too, considers Lost Highway a good fit.
"If you're on a bigger label, you kind of get lost in all the dance bands and everything," she says from her home in Los Angeles. "The kind of music I do can fall through the cracks."
"It felt like the early days of Def American," says Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, veteran roots rockers who have had their ups and downs as part of the Island/Def Jam/Universal subsidiary American Recordings. "A group of people focused on music that they really believe in, that isn't the flavor of the month."
Because whether you're Tift Merritt or Lucinda, whether you're selling 50,000 albums or 500,000, these are not Shania numbers. These are not George Strait numbers. But that's not the idea behind Lost Highway. Lost Highway is about the idea of a safe haven.
Kicked out of the house
Not every Lost Highway story has a happy ending. Though Lewis remains fond of both David Baerwald and his music — "he's one of the brightest people I've ever known" — Baerwald's album, "Here Comes the New Folk Underground," sold fewer than 15,000 copies, and Baerwald never got support for the sort of tour that esoteric singer-songwriters require to move their esoteric product.
For his part, Baerwald doesn't seem too bitter. He moved to Austin from Los Angeles in November 2001, and now he's moving back, to pursue a career in movie scoring and soundtracks.
"It's the best thing that could have happened to me," Baerwald says of his departure from Lost Highway, "because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I belong in film composition. I'm a grumpy middle-age man; you really couldn't find a less likely pop figure."
Lewis says the pieces for success were there — Baerwald had one big hit, "Welcome to the Boomtown," in the late '80s as half of the duo David+David — but the fans were not. "(David) wasn't an unknown quantity, and Callari and I are huge fans, but I think we assumed that there were more of them in the world."
Another abortive signing was Alabama group the Drive-By Truckers. Last year, Lost Highway reissued the Truckers' self-released double CD, "Southern Rock Opera," a complicated meditation on growing up a liberal Dixie kid who loved punk rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The follow-up, "Decoration Day," was supposed to come out on Lost Highway. The band was even supposed to play tonight's showcase.
But according to Lewis, the Truckers "chose to go in a different direction creatively." So the Truckers pulled out of Lost Highway. Lead Trucker Patterson Hood had no comment about who's going to put out the finished album, but the Truckers will play the New West Records SXSW showcase Saturday.
As for 2001 Lost Highway SXSW showcase headliner Robert Earl Keen — who, according to his manager, was in the studio and unavailable for comment — he left the label in 2001. Klein contends that though Keen reached his regional fan base, he didn't add any new markets.
"It wasn't for lack of trying, but we didn't move him out of Texas the way we hoped we could," Klein says.
At his core, Lewis still has to move a good number of units. "If anybody thinks that Lost Highway, no matter how righteous we're trying to be, doesn't have some of the same trappings as any other label, they're crazy," he says.
"I'm not cocky enough to think that if we were to have a couple of rough years anyone would tolerate it. Universal won't allow me to have a hobby."
But right now, for everyone at the Austin Music Hall tonight, the idea is working.
[email protected]; 912-5926
Lost Highway article from the Austin American Statesman
Dan
location: WV➔VA➔FL➔WV➔OH
listening to: so many intros
registered: 1997.08.29
posts: 2697
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
–--
in a show with everything but Yul Brynner
in a show with everything but Yul Brynner
Dan
(view)
Lost Highway: A road to success
Joe Gross
American-Statesman Staff
Luke Lewis can sum up the idea of Lost Highway Records in fewer than 25 words: "Singer-songwriter driven. Not radio reliant. Artists with a proven foundation so we wouldn't have to build the label from scratch."
It's the day after the Grammys, and two Lost Highway artists walked away with awards. Johnny Cash won "Best Male Country Vocal" for "Give My Love To Rose" from "American IV: The Man Comes Around," a gold album that will likely go platinum in a few months. Willie Nelson won "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" for "Mendocino County Line" from "The Great Divide," his latest studio album. (Nelson joins Lucinda Williams, John Eddie, Tift Merritt and the Jayhawks tonight at the Austin Music Hall as part of the BMI/Lost Highway SXSW showcase.)
Lewis is one of the most powerful men in country music. As the chairman of Universal Music Nashville, he oversees a group of labels that includes MCA Nashville (George Strait, Lee Ann Womack), Mercury Nashville (Shania Twain, Terri Clark) and Lost Highway. Which means he's in charge of labels that can, as Lewis puts it, "move tonnage" and garner critical acclaim.
He's also well liked. Says songwriter David Baerwald, "Luke isn't like any other record executive you've ever met. The man has enormous personal charisma." And this is coming from a guy who parted ways with Lost Highway earlier this year after his album went nowhere fast.
But no matter how charismatic the guy at the top is, all great record labels are selling you an idea: an idea about music, an idea about the artists, an idea about yourself.
So what's the idea behind Lost Highway?
Successful debut
To millions of CD buyers, Lost Highway is the label that put out the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.
Which is good and bad. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. In 2000, after a couple of years of thinking about the thing, Lewis decided to form the Lost Highway imprint with talent manager Frank Callari as head of A&R.
"We had been talking about having a full service label in Nashville that was a quote-unquote 'country' label," Callari says, meaning a label that would focus on country and roots music minus the usual Nashville gloss.
Callari was already managing what would become Lost Highway's key acts: former Austinite Lucinda Williams, already on sister label Mercury; former Whiskeytown frontman and budding alt-country sex symbol Ryan Adams and talented newcomer (and potential alt-country sex symbol) Tift Merritt. Mercury Nashville had two more alt-country type singers, William Topley and Kim Richey, who he knew would make more sense under the brand-building banner of Lost Highway.
The name was lifted from a Hank Williams song ("Timeless: A Tribute to Hank Williams" was an early Lost Highway project). The first release, in December 2000, was "O Brother Where Art Thou?"
Which was a commercial smash (more than 7 million sold) in a lousy year for record buying. Which won four Grammys, including album of the year. Which many said pointed to the existence of an adult pop music marketplace that wasn't being served. Suddenly, this niche shelter for singer-songwriters had a huge hit, including the popular single, "Man of Constant Sorrow."
Lewis says "O Brother's" massive success best serves as a reminder that anything is possible, rather than as some sort of business model. "There's no question that 'O Brother' gave us an indication of how many passionate music freaks are out there, but I don't think it's model for anything," he says. "The truth of the matter is it was word of mouth. It did have a film to drive it, but many people just discovered that record on their own."
The idea of success
Still, no record label worth its salt will simply give itself over to the vagaries of the marketplace. Ben Klein, Lost Highway's senior vice-president of sales and field marketing, is the label's numbers man. Thrilled as he was by "O Brother," he's prouder of the follow-up, "Down From the Mountain." That record accompanied a small-scale documentary by legendary rock documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, rather than a feature film, but it went gold anyway. "That one was purely about the music," he says.
Klein explains that there's a sliding scale for success at Lost Highway. A relative unknown such as Tift Merritt is judged differently than a Ryan Adams, who has sold about half a million albums.
Merritt's "Bramble Rose" sold more than 50,000, Klein says. "She's the classic example of artist development. We've increased her profile a thousand times over, and I think she's one hit song away from being a gold act," he adds.
"They've just given us a lot of support," Merritt says from her North Carolina practice space. "I've found a safe haven in Lost Highway."
John Eddie, who opens tonight's showcase, is an experienced songwriter without a national profile. Coming up through the New Jersey bar scene in the '80s, Eddie was smiled upon by Bruce Springsteen and was signed to Sony, which released two of his records, and then Elektra, which never released his third and tied him up in the courts for years. After self-releasing two more albums, Eddie signed last year to Lost Highway, which believes his R&B/bar band style could reach a wider audience.
"John Eddie has a fan base in the Northeast and is a great live performer who loves to work," Lewis says. "He's also a gifted songwriter with years of experience. That, combined with many supporters at AAA radio, makes him a good bet."
Lucinda Williams, obviously, is an entirely different case. Her new album, "World Without Tears," arrives in April and is considered a tent pole of this year's release slate. But she, too, considers Lost Highway a good fit.
"If you're on a bigger label, you kind of get lost in all the dance bands and everything," she says from her home in Los Angeles. "The kind of music I do can fall through the cracks."
"It felt like the early days of Def American," says Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, veteran roots rockers who have had their ups and downs as part of the Island/Def Jam/Universal subsidiary American Recordings. "A group of people focused on music that they really believe in, that isn't the flavor of the month."
Because whether you're Tift Merritt or Lucinda, whether you're selling 50,000 albums or 500,000, these are not Shania numbers. These are not George Strait numbers. But that's not the idea behind Lost Highway. Lost Highway is about the idea of a safe haven.
Kicked out of the house
Not every Lost Highway story has a happy ending. Though Lewis remains fond of both David Baerwald and his music — "he's one of the brightest people I've ever known" — Baerwald's album, "Here Comes the New Folk Underground," sold fewer than 15,000 copies, and Baerwald never got support for the sort of tour that esoteric singer-songwriters require to move their esoteric product.
For his part, Baerwald doesn't seem too bitter. He moved to Austin from Los Angeles in November 2001, and now he's moving back, to pursue a career in movie scoring and soundtracks.
"It's the best thing that could have happened to me," Baerwald says of his departure from Lost Highway, "because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I belong in film composition. I'm a grumpy middle-age man; you really couldn't find a less likely pop figure."
Lewis says the pieces for success were there — Baerwald had one big hit, "Welcome to the Boomtown," in the late '80s as half of the duo David+David — but the fans were not. "(David) wasn't an unknown quantity, and Callari and I are huge fans, but I think we assumed that there were more of them in the world."
Another abortive signing was Alabama group the Drive-By Truckers. Last year, Lost Highway reissued the Truckers' self-released double CD, "Southern Rock Opera," a complicated meditation on growing up a liberal Dixie kid who loved punk rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The follow-up, "Decoration Day," was supposed to come out on Lost Highway. The band was even supposed to play tonight's showcase.
But according to Lewis, the Truckers "chose to go in a different direction creatively." So the Truckers pulled out of Lost Highway. Lead Trucker Patterson Hood had no comment about who's going to put out the finished album, but the Truckers will play the New West Records SXSW showcase Saturday.
As for 2001 Lost Highway SXSW showcase headliner Robert Earl Keen — who, according to his manager, was in the studio and unavailable for comment — he left the label in 2001. Klein contends that though Keen reached his regional fan base, he didn't add any new markets.
"It wasn't for lack of trying, but we didn't move him out of Texas the way we hoped we could," Klein says.
At his core, Lewis still has to move a good number of units. "If anybody thinks that Lost Highway, no matter how righteous we're trying to be, doesn't have some of the same trappings as any other label, they're crazy," he says.
"I'm not cocky enough to think that if we were to have a couple of rough years anyone would tolerate it. Universal won't allow me to have a hobby."
But right now, for everyone at the Austin Music Hall tonight, the idea is working.
[email protected]; 912-5926
Joe Gross
American-Statesman Staff
Luke Lewis can sum up the idea of Lost Highway Records in fewer than 25 words: "Singer-songwriter driven. Not radio reliant. Artists with a proven foundation so we wouldn't have to build the label from scratch."
It's the day after the Grammys, and two Lost Highway artists walked away with awards. Johnny Cash won "Best Male Country Vocal" for "Give My Love To Rose" from "American IV: The Man Comes Around," a gold album that will likely go platinum in a few months. Willie Nelson won "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" for "Mendocino County Line" from "The Great Divide," his latest studio album. (Nelson joins Lucinda Williams, John Eddie, Tift Merritt and the Jayhawks tonight at the Austin Music Hall as part of the BMI/Lost Highway SXSW showcase.)
Lewis is one of the most powerful men in country music. As the chairman of Universal Music Nashville, he oversees a group of labels that includes MCA Nashville (George Strait, Lee Ann Womack), Mercury Nashville (Shania Twain, Terri Clark) and Lost Highway. Which means he's in charge of labels that can, as Lewis puts it, "move tonnage" and garner critical acclaim.
He's also well liked. Says songwriter David Baerwald, "Luke isn't like any other record executive you've ever met. The man has enormous personal charisma." And this is coming from a guy who parted ways with Lost Highway earlier this year after his album went nowhere fast.
But no matter how charismatic the guy at the top is, all great record labels are selling you an idea: an idea about music, an idea about the artists, an idea about yourself.
So what's the idea behind Lost Highway?
Successful debut
To millions of CD buyers, Lost Highway is the label that put out the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.
Which is good and bad. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. In 2000, after a couple of years of thinking about the thing, Lewis decided to form the Lost Highway imprint with talent manager Frank Callari as head of A&R.
"We had been talking about having a full service label in Nashville that was a quote-unquote 'country' label," Callari says, meaning a label that would focus on country and roots music minus the usual Nashville gloss.
Callari was already managing what would become Lost Highway's key acts: former Austinite Lucinda Williams, already on sister label Mercury; former Whiskeytown frontman and budding alt-country sex symbol Ryan Adams and talented newcomer (and potential alt-country sex symbol) Tift Merritt. Mercury Nashville had two more alt-country type singers, William Topley and Kim Richey, who he knew would make more sense under the brand-building banner of Lost Highway.
The name was lifted from a Hank Williams song ("Timeless: A Tribute to Hank Williams" was an early Lost Highway project). The first release, in December 2000, was "O Brother Where Art Thou?"
Which was a commercial smash (more than 7 million sold) in a lousy year for record buying. Which won four Grammys, including album of the year. Which many said pointed to the existence of an adult pop music marketplace that wasn't being served. Suddenly, this niche shelter for singer-songwriters had a huge hit, including the popular single, "Man of Constant Sorrow."
Lewis says "O Brother's" massive success best serves as a reminder that anything is possible, rather than as some sort of business model. "There's no question that 'O Brother' gave us an indication of how many passionate music freaks are out there, but I don't think it's model for anything," he says. "The truth of the matter is it was word of mouth. It did have a film to drive it, but many people just discovered that record on their own."
The idea of success
Still, no record label worth its salt will simply give itself over to the vagaries of the marketplace. Ben Klein, Lost Highway's senior vice-president of sales and field marketing, is the label's numbers man. Thrilled as he was by "O Brother," he's prouder of the follow-up, "Down From the Mountain." That record accompanied a small-scale documentary by legendary rock documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, rather than a feature film, but it went gold anyway. "That one was purely about the music," he says.
Klein explains that there's a sliding scale for success at Lost Highway. A relative unknown such as Tift Merritt is judged differently than a Ryan Adams, who has sold about half a million albums.
Merritt's "Bramble Rose" sold more than 50,000, Klein says. "She's the classic example of artist development. We've increased her profile a thousand times over, and I think she's one hit song away from being a gold act," he adds.
"They've just given us a lot of support," Merritt says from her North Carolina practice space. "I've found a safe haven in Lost Highway."
John Eddie, who opens tonight's showcase, is an experienced songwriter without a national profile. Coming up through the New Jersey bar scene in the '80s, Eddie was smiled upon by Bruce Springsteen and was signed to Sony, which released two of his records, and then Elektra, which never released his third and tied him up in the courts for years. After self-releasing two more albums, Eddie signed last year to Lost Highway, which believes his R&B/bar band style could reach a wider audience.
"John Eddie has a fan base in the Northeast and is a great live performer who loves to work," Lewis says. "He's also a gifted songwriter with years of experience. That, combined with many supporters at AAA radio, makes him a good bet."
Lucinda Williams, obviously, is an entirely different case. Her new album, "World Without Tears," arrives in April and is considered a tent pole of this year's release slate. But she, too, considers Lost Highway a good fit.
"If you're on a bigger label, you kind of get lost in all the dance bands and everything," she says from her home in Los Angeles. "The kind of music I do can fall through the cracks."
"It felt like the early days of Def American," says Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, veteran roots rockers who have had their ups and downs as part of the Island/Def Jam/Universal subsidiary American Recordings. "A group of people focused on music that they really believe in, that isn't the flavor of the month."
Because whether you're Tift Merritt or Lucinda, whether you're selling 50,000 albums or 500,000, these are not Shania numbers. These are not George Strait numbers. But that's not the idea behind Lost Highway. Lost Highway is about the idea of a safe haven.
Kicked out of the house
Not every Lost Highway story has a happy ending. Though Lewis remains fond of both David Baerwald and his music — "he's one of the brightest people I've ever known" — Baerwald's album, "Here Comes the New Folk Underground," sold fewer than 15,000 copies, and Baerwald never got support for the sort of tour that esoteric singer-songwriters require to move their esoteric product.
For his part, Baerwald doesn't seem too bitter. He moved to Austin from Los Angeles in November 2001, and now he's moving back, to pursue a career in movie scoring and soundtracks.
"It's the best thing that could have happened to me," Baerwald says of his departure from Lost Highway, "because I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. I belong in film composition. I'm a grumpy middle-age man; you really couldn't find a less likely pop figure."
Lewis says the pieces for success were there — Baerwald had one big hit, "Welcome to the Boomtown," in the late '80s as half of the duo David+David — but the fans were not. "(David) wasn't an unknown quantity, and Callari and I are huge fans, but I think we assumed that there were more of them in the world."
Another abortive signing was Alabama group the Drive-By Truckers. Last year, Lost Highway reissued the Truckers' self-released double CD, "Southern Rock Opera," a complicated meditation on growing up a liberal Dixie kid who loved punk rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The follow-up, "Decoration Day," was supposed to come out on Lost Highway. The band was even supposed to play tonight's showcase.
But according to Lewis, the Truckers "chose to go in a different direction creatively." So the Truckers pulled out of Lost Highway. Lead Trucker Patterson Hood had no comment about who's going to put out the finished album, but the Truckers will play the New West Records SXSW showcase Saturday.
As for 2001 Lost Highway SXSW showcase headliner Robert Earl Keen — who, according to his manager, was in the studio and unavailable for comment — he left the label in 2001. Klein contends that though Keen reached his regional fan base, he didn't add any new markets.
"It wasn't for lack of trying, but we didn't move him out of Texas the way we hoped we could," Klein says.
At his core, Lewis still has to move a good number of units. "If anybody thinks that Lost Highway, no matter how righteous we're trying to be, doesn't have some of the same trappings as any other label, they're crazy," he says.
"I'm not cocky enough to think that if we were to have a couple of rough years anyone would tolerate it. Universal won't allow me to have a hobby."
But right now, for everyone at the Austin Music Hall tonight, the idea is working.
[email protected]; 912-5926
–--
in a show with everything but Yul Brynner
in a show with everything but Yul Brynner
