We were lucky to catch up with Craig S. Hyman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Craig S., appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I like to think that all of my projects and clients are meaningful. They all represent something different creatively or in the structure of their production/organization that resonates with me, my passions or my skill set, that makes me want to be involved with them in the first place. This can be a musical artist for which I operate in a consulting or artist management capacity. Or, it can be a live music concert series or festival like the Los Angeles Global Music Festival that I am launching this September 9th, 2023, as well as the Santa Clarita International Film Festival inaugural live Music Series for which I am Artistic Director. They all appeal to me for various reasons but on the same side of the coin, that means something to me, certainly enough to invest all of my time, energy, resources and heart into them.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As far back as I can remember music was and still is my greatest passion. It’s like oxygen to me, even though I don’t play an instrument (save a little blues harp in college). I remember as far back as around 4 or 5 years old buying the first Beatles Record “Meet The Beatles’, and falling crazy in love with it. But actually the first song that I ever remember hearing, which changed my life completely, was about a year before I bought the first Beatles record, which was “I Got Rythym” by The Happenings. Once I heard it that was it. It grabbed me in a way that I never experienced before and which I had no control over and it sort of ran my life, my passion for the rest of my life. Over time after trying my hand at guitar and drums and realizing I didn’t have the patience or ability to really pull that off (although I have a musicians ear), and knowing I had to be around music and talk about music as much as possible, and over time realizing that I have a great ability to produce and manage anything, and an uncanny skill to make things happen, often impossible things, I set my sights on working in the music industry which has been in Live Music and Recorded Music, for the most part, all of my life even since college as an elected Concert Promoter and a Radio Show DJ. And I have been doing that ever since, with the focus now on Live Concert Presenting, Programming, Curating, etc., (Concert Promoter Bill Graham has always been my Hero) as well as Artist Management and Consulting on everything under the sun that falls in the music industry category.
I am also a TV/Film & Large Scale Events Producer, and I have a long and illustrious career in all of those mediums, which I still do a bit from time to time especially if the content is music related and/or a cause that I believe in or support, but it is not my primary career right now, that would be live music. It was my seeing M-TV for the first time when it came out (when it used to play music videos 24 hours per day) that drove me into TV as I saw how TV & Music could be married and create not only the musical experience but also the visual experience, and since I loved both mediums TV/Film & Music it was a no brainer, which gave me years of working on so many unbelievable TV/Film projects and allowed me to step in and out of so many different worlds and with so many incredibly different people on a daily basis.
I think what sets me apart from a lot of people who do what I do is that I am really an artist at heart (and in mind and ear) so I have that sensitivity, passion, insight, and so on, because I not only can relate to and see and hear things from an artists perspective, but also from a business perspective, which gives me the ability of both, and I don’t think that is terribly common in the music biz. It’s not that it is unheard of, as many ex-musicians work in the music industry, it’s just that it’s usually one or the other, not both. It also gives me the ability to know how to speak to artists in a manner that allows them to hear me and understand that I get their feelings and position on things and also care. I like to say this about myself which is written in my Bio:
“Craig possesses that rare combination of artistic sensibility and business know-how. A global music seeker, he is skilled at recognizing and nurturing talent, with a passion for building bridges between cultures and communities through music and the arts.”
My passion combined with the fact that I have the ability to nurture and guide artists careers and manage them, most times from the very beginning to a certain level of success is something that fulfills me deeply about my work and my ability to provide such a service to artists (and in turn the industry & general public) that help them. Mostly just having talent isn’t enough. An artist usually needs someone to show them the way, have someone they feel safe with to bounce things off of who will tell them the truth and open at least a few doors for them, which is also a service that I provide.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
This is easy to answer. I live to see people get off on Live Music or Recorded Music. Live Music especially, as is the best and I love this more than anything as the energy level can be so high in a room or a venue and to see the audience react in such a heightened way and also the artist(s) do the same, and to take it even further, seeing them both playing off of each other when the audience and the artist become one and the same from their emotional levels of exchange, nothing beats this, and this is what its all about for me, The Experience. The Experience that both Artist and Audience member have together and because of each other. I get equally turned on by people hearing recorded music for the first time as well. It may not be as big as Live Music because we are talking about an individual or a few people as opposed to hundreds and thousands at a live concert, but its still profound, positive, happy, rewarding and it really gives me a High.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
All You Need To Know About The Music Business – Don Passman Music Money and Success: The Insider’s Guide to Making Money in the Music Business – Jeffrey & Todd Brabec
How To Make It In The Music Business – Ari Herstand
Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta – Robert Palmer (Ethnomusicologist, not the Pop Musician)
Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out – Bill Graham
A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead – Dennis McNally
Mick Jagger; Everybody’s Lucifer – Anthony Scaduto
Be Here Now – Ram Dass
You’ll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation – Wayne Dyer
Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life – Wayne W Dyer
Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life – Shakti Gawain and Marci Shimoff
The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @craig.s.hyman @craigshyman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/craig.s.hyman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-s-hyman-3a162624/
- Other: REPRESENTING: HEART OF AFGHANISTAN (AFGHANISTAN/US) – https://americanvoices.org/program/heart-of-afghanistan/ SIA TOLNO / AFRO DEAD (AFRICA/FRANCE/SPAIN/US) – www.siatolno.com – www.afrodead.com LOS ANGELES GLOBAL MUSIC FESTIVAL (LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, US) – https://www.resonancecollective.org/laglobalmusicfestival.html ALDIS AMAH HAMILTON (ICELAND/NORTH AMERICA/EUROPE) – https://modurskipid.is/en/aldis-amah-hamilton/ ATLAS MAIOR (AUSTIN, TEXAS, US) – https://atlasmaior.com KAMINI NATARAJAN (LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, US/INDIA) – https://www.kaminimusic.com SANTA CLARITA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (SCIFF) (LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, US) – https://filmfreeway.com/SCIFF