May News

• View Webcasts of Panels – One of the many benefits of membership is our archive of past panels.  If you missed the April NY panel, "Pitch Session - Part 1", members can view the full videocast here, as well as all other archived panels from all 3 chapters.  All are welcome to view a sampling of video clips here.
  
• Music Business Articles - We thank Song Matchmakers Network for a new article this month, an interview with music producer Tony Brown. Find their previous music supervisor articles here. 
• Mark Your Calendars! - The June  Los Angeles AIMP meeting promises to be a most exciting one as we are joined by renowned record producer Ken Caillat. Ken will join us to discuss his life and times and the 35th Anniversary of Fleetwood Mac’s Grammy-award winning album “Rumours”, which Ken produced. This promises to be a very engaging lunch and there may even be a surprise guest appearance. Come join us for a most memorable luncheon!
• New Featured Member - Our new featured member is former 2-time President of the AIMP and founder of Artists First Music, Richard Feldman.  Richard has a fascinating career history that spans Music, Business and Technology. Want to learn more about Richard? Click here (and scroll down). 
• Follow Us - And don't forget to follow the AIMP on Twitter, like us on Facebook and join us on LinkedIn.

Richard Feldman/Artists First Music

Richard Feldman is President and founder of Artists First Music (AFM), a music placement agency/production music library, and the managing director of RIJO Investment Group.   He served as president of the National AIMP Board from 2010-2013 and as board member from 2006 –2010. Through a widely varied career in many segments of the music industry he has had a front row seat observing the collision of technology and the music industry, where participating in the creative and business aspects of the music industry and understanding the evolution of both has been a constant source of interest for him. As with many others, he has evolved with the business to serve his own muse as well as seeking a way to serve lovers of music.            

Richard’s music career began in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a band he formed in high school, The New Velvets, which toured the Midwest playing for high schools and colleges (think “Animal House”).  Armed with a BS in Developmental Psychology, he returned to Tulsa to join Leon Russell’s Shelter Studio band, where he recorded with numerous artists, notably an early version of Michael Bolton and members of Bob Marley’s band. At Shelter he recorded and published his first song for Captain Beefheart, “Captains Holiday”, to fulfill the “Captain’s” contractual commitment on his Moonbeams album. At the same time, Richard founded and played lead guitar in a local band, Guava, with members of Leon Russell’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen group and musicians who would become Eric Clapton’s “461 Ocean Blvd” era touring and recording band.  

Moving to Los Angeles as a session guitarist in 1978, he roomed with and consulted for Roger Linn whose Linn Drum had significant impact on recorded music. He used a prototype of the LinnDrum to record a demo of his first successful song “Promises” which became a hit for Eric Clapton. During this period he joined Denny Cordell’s Shelter Records as senior A&R until he was fired for coming into work late after Promises became a hit. Realizing publishing royalties trumped session work, Richard formed a publishing company and began songwriting in earnest, writing with many of LA’s great songwriters, and scoring successes with covers by over 40 artists, including Joe Cocker, Don Williams, The Pointer Sisters, Taj Mahal, Paula Abdul, Kenny Rogers, Eric Clapton, and The Divinyls.

Transitioning to record production, he worked with artists including Belinda Carlisle, Milla Jovovich, Midge Ure, Sublime, Bobby Womack and reggae artists to include the Congos, Michael Rose, Joe Higgs, Junior Reid, the Wailing Souls, and U-Roy. He also collaborated with Dave Stewart on many productions including the Eurythmics, Etta James and Shakespeare Sister.  Working with Manager extraordinaire Mike Cacia, Richard conceived, produced and engineered True Love for Toots and The Maytals, which won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2004. The CD featured duets with Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, The Roots, Bootsy Collins, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, No Doubt, Manu Chow and others. Richard is currently involved with Toots on a new Maytals duets recording with roots based artists, and a separate EP featuring EDM artists.  Additionally he is producing music for the Universal Pictures release “Return of The Little Rascals.”

On the business side, Richard earned an MBA in international finance from West Coast University in 1980, followed later by an Executive management MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School in 2001.   He has served on the board of Euphonix, a manufacturer of large format consoles, and and Healthmark, a preventive medicine company. He also worked for University of Tulsa’s Cyber Security Department to commercialize their anti-piracy application (spoofing).  Though efforts to thwart piracy were not successful (for anyone) he successfully brokered the sale of the patent in 2003. 

Artists First Music represents upcoming and established independent artists for sync as well as publishing. The AFM music library specializes in sports music and custom music cues, and has blanket agreements with several networks including Fox Sports and Time Warner Cable as well as creating themes for Big Ten Network, Fox Sports, and promotions for TWC, UFC, ESPN, commercials and movie trailers.

Richard and his wife Annie have two daughters, Haley and Jorie, both in college in New York City, and a son, Will, who will begin college in fall 2013.   The family connects via their mutual love of music, travel and debating/arguing at the dinner table.