Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeffrey Weber. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jeffrey , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I had no idea I wanted to be in the music business. Upon graduating from college as an English/Creative Writing major (I changed my major every year!) I had no idea what to do with my life.
My father was a prominent attorney in Los Angeles, so I thought I would attend law school. At least I had a job when I graduated!
I was a journalist in college and in law school, and when I graduated law school, I got a job at Cashbox Magazine, a music industry trade magazine. They needed someone who could take the myriad of lawsuits and synthesize them down into a few paragraphs so that their readers could understand.just what the lawsuits were all about.
Cashbox received hundreds and hundreds of records every week, hoping for a favorable published review from a staff writer. Trouble was, most were just plain awful. After listening to dozens and dozens of records that failed to inspire, I felt that even I, with absolutely no industry experience, could produce a better product than most of the musical junk I listened to. After getting that out of my system, I figured I would go back and try to pass the bar exam. Yet, again…
Ok, I decided, then and there, I was Jeff Weber, the record producer. Well, that was easy. Now what? I didn’t know a thing about anything. Nothing. I went up to three musicians whose music was terrific and identified myself as Jeff Weber, the record producer! I was more fearless than I should have been.
Anyway, I told them that I wanted to produce a recording with them. I thought they were going to ask me if they might have heard anything I had produced previously, but being musicians, they asked what their recording fees might be. I had no idea. I asked what they had in mind. They told me. I had no knowledge of whether the amount was reasonable, but instead, I said ok. Whew! I had a band to produce!
Next, I went to a record care cleaning company in St. Louis that had been the subject of one of my articles for Cashbox and told them about my idea of creating a record as a marketing tool for their product line. I mentioned that I was a producer and had three musicians that agreed to work with me.
They thought it was an intriguing idea and asked for a proposal. I had no idea what that was so I wrote a term paper! To my utter surprise, they agreed to fund the project. Now, I was really terrified!
I got a phone call from the leader asking where we were going to record. I hadn’t got that far. I looked in the phone book (Yup, all we had were phone books.) for recording studios, not knowing what I was looking for. I saw a listing for RCA studios, with their logo – you know, the dog listening to the gramophone. I reasoned, they’ve been around for a while, they must be good.
I called and requested a tour, but I had no idea what I was looking at. Lots of knobs, buttons and lots and lots of tiny, blinking red, white and green lights. Oh well. When they told me their rates, I swallowed hard and nodded. WTF!
Right about that time, I received another call from one of the musicians asking what songs were we going record. I thought about it and decided we were going to record older songs that they already knew so that I wouldn’t have to talk much. If I kept my mouth closed they wouldn’t know what an idiot I was.
I was so nervous, my kneecaps were shaking throughout the whole session. I was sweating bullets. I decided to record the album direct to disc. That meant that we avoided tape all together, recording right on to a master lacquer. That meant that all five or six songs on each side had to be recorded, one after the other, with only the space between songs for the musicians to catch their breath. Any mistake on any of the songs meant we would have to scrap the lacquer and start all over. Not for the faint of heart.
These musicians were fearless and performed like musical gifts from above. Nothing bothered these guys. Their playing was stunning! No rehearsals, either. Ok, here’s the band – Paul Smith, Ella Fitzgerald’s pianist for 30 years, Ray Brown, the most respected jazz bassist on the planet, and Louie Bellson, one of the most heralded drummers of his time.
The resultant record was a true audiophile recording. I still listen to that record today and the playing and the sonics are still benchmarks of the craft of making music.
After I turned the record in, I was all prepared to go back to taking the bar exam, when I received the call from the company in St. Louis, loving the product. Whew!!!
They told me that the record was so good, maybe they should do two the following year. And, that’s how the flame was lit.
It’s now been more than 45 years and 200+ albums later. My projects have been honored with multiple Grammys and multiple Grammy nominations.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Jeffrey Weber has been a widely-recognized music industry professional for over forty years. He has produced over 200 CDs with releases on just about every major label as well as a host of independent labels. Along the way, his projects have yielded two Grammys, seven Grammy nominations, at least seventeen top ten albums, two number one albums and an assortment of other honors.
His books, “You Sound Amazing! Every Single Lie of the Music Business,” “Pandemic Side Effects – A Tragic Comedy of Unintended Consequences,” “You’ve Got A Deal! The Biggest Lies of the Music Business” and “We’ll Get Back To You! Even Bigger Lies Of The Music Business” are all published by Headline Books.
During his forty plus years in the music industry, he has founded, ran or participated in various label capacities from A&R, Music Supervision for film and TV, Production, Interactive Programming, Marketing, Sales, International Relations, Business Affairs and Art Director for dozens of independent labels as well as his own labels, Weberworks Entertainment Group and Stark Raving Records.
His productions have also appeared on every major label including MCA, Warner Bros., Atlantic, BMG, Columbia, A&M, Elektra as well as such labels as GRP, Hip-O, Sheffield, Concord, Bainbridge, Silver Eagle, Zebra, among countless others.
Among the many artists that have fallen under the banner of “Produced by…” include: Nancy Wilson, David Benoit, Steve Lukather, the Utah Symphony, Jackson Browne, Marcus Miller, Michael McDonald, Bill Champlin, Gerald Albright, Tom Scott, Chick Corea, Stanley Clark, Etta James, Linda Hopkins, Kenny Burrell, McCoy Tyner, Jackie McLean, Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big), Cozzy Powell, the Count Basie Orchestra, Cindy Blackman Santana, Buster Williams, John Sebastian, Ronnie Dio, Ritchie Blackmore, Pat Boone, Buddy Miles, Billy Preston, MC Lyte, Kenny Rankin, Diane Reeves, Diane Schuur, Rita Coolidge, Luther Vandross, David Crosby, Simon Phillips, Jeff Porcaro, Patrice Rushen, Toni Tennille, among many others.
Jeff has been a concert, event and music festival producer for over twenty years with extensive experience in concert management and production, staging, lighting, video and audio from the smallest of venues to large stadium shows. He has produced shows for Facebook, the Los Angeles Soul Music Festival, Habitat For Humanity, Atlantis Resort, NASCAR, the Breeder’s Cup, Chicago White Sox, Cystic Fibrosis, Fallsview Casino and Resort, Ford, Harry Caray’s, KTLA, Loehmann’s Department Store, Lupus L.A., National Association of Music Merchants, National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Netflix, Orange County Flyers, Pebble Beach Pro-Am, AT&T, Dockers, Shore Club-South Beach, Taste Of Chicago, USAA, American Idol and The Tonight Show among many others.
Stark Raving Press, Weber’s next gen novella length eBook publishing company launched in 2013. The roster includes NY Times Bestselling authors, Pulitzer Prize winners and an assortment of other highly lauded authors. The company has national and international distribution and focuses on mysteries, crime fiction, action/adventure, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, women’s literature, romance and non-fiction. Each of their titles is $2.99 or less.
Jeff is in high demand as a consultant to the financial industry on a multitude of music industry related matters. To date, he has consulted with such companies as Canyon Capital Advisors, Samlyn Capital LLC, Fleishman-Hillard, Inc., Morgan Stanley, MSD Capital (UK) Limited, BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Apollo Investment Corp., Goldman Sachs, Putnam Investments, KPMG LLP and Scopia Capital, LLC.
Recently, Weber finalized his, from the ground up, re-definition of the business model for a record label that he firmly believes will be the architecture for all labels in the future. Weber’s model has embraced a complete slate of innovative concepts and procedures, ranging from the manner in which artist contracts are conceived and implemented to recording procedures, to innovations in sales, marketing and promotion. Designed to re-invent and re-energize the relationships between the artist and the label and the artist and the consumer, the model establishes format-breaking levels of transparency and unique partnerships in all label/artist/fan relationships.
His innovative concepts were the operational foundations for two independent labels distributed by Fontana (Universal). At the time, he was named President of both labels.
Jeff is well known for his involvement in high technology recording techniques, especially live two track recording, live multi-track and digital recording. Because of their sonic excellence, his recordings have been repeatedly selected by major hardware manufacturers to demonstrate their product lines.
Jeff is very active as a music supervisor for film, television and cable. He specializes in cost effective synchronization and master use license acquisition strategies as well as production based music options.
Jeff co-founded and programmed Studio M, a nationwide broadcast television network that utilized their growing 28,000 music video library to broadcast multiple genre based music video shows. It was on the air seven days a week, for five hours a day to an estimated audience of thirty million homes.
In addition to music production, Jeff has spent over twenty years behind the microphone as a voice-over talent for commercials, cartoons, industrial films, infomercials, live web broadcasting, and television. He has done voice work for Huawei, Interscope (Guns & Roses), Toyota, Nissan, Ford, VR Troopers, the Ventura County Star newspaper chain, Play It Again Sports, Sony, Boston Acoustics, Audio Source, the BBC, the Jazz Network, Dejaun Jewelers, the Los Angeles Zoo, CBS and Warner Bros., among countless others. He continues to be extremely active in this field.
Well versed in video production, Jeff has written, produced and directed over two-dozen music based concerts and videos. For one project, he produced a 12 camera, High Definition, robotic, five-channel surround sound DVD/CD for a rock and roll cover band comprised of famous television actors who traveled the country raising money for their selected charities. He traveled with the band, producing all their live concerts for over five years.
He has been a music journalist with articles in major industry publications nationwide. He has received numerous awards as an art director and many of his album cover designs have been published in ”Best of…” annual publications. As an educator, he has taught courses on the music industry at universities and law schools (he has a law degree as well) across the country.
Jeff is a lifetime member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) as well as a former Governor, National Trustee and Chapter Vice President.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Success is a decision. Never aspire – declare. I tell all my artists to never tell someone that they are studying or learning or preparing to be a singer or a songwriter. Never say you are taking lessons. Instead, say you are working on your next project. You’re not lying. But, if you see yourself in that light, others will see you in that light as well. Validation comes from within, so if you truly believe in yourself, nothing anyone else can say will bother you. In a business that is 100% judgmental, 100% of the time, belief in yourself is the shield you must carry with you always.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I’m in a very wonderful position as a music producer. My goal is to make dreams come true. I know of no other profession that is so rewarding and so meaningful.
Quick story. I produced a record with Toni Tennille, best known for her enduring career with her husband. They were known as the Captain and Tennille. Many of us grew up with their music,
I had the idea to do a recording with a full orchestra, singing the American songbook. Toni, a fabulous singer, loved the idea, though everyone, including her husband, her attorney and her record label hated the idea. Her husband told her that if she went forward with the project, he would not be involved, and her label dropped her! I raised money for the project from ten investors.
At the conclusion of the recording (we recorded 22 songs in 11 hours live to two tracks with no mixing, editing or overdubbing!), Toni started crying. She then told me, “Now, at least I have something I can be proud of.”
The record went on to incredible success. The investors received their initial investment and then some, within 90 days.
That’s my job, making dreams come true…!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: jeffreyweber2352
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.weber.39
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyweber/
Image Credits
Barry Holmes
Andrew Matusik
Tom Concordia