A Conversation with Audio Fidelity’s Marshall Blonstein – HuffPost 7.29.11

Mike Ragogna: Marshall, how are you?

Marshall Blonstein: Doing well, how are you Mike?

MR: Very well, thanks. Tell us about your label, Audio Fidelity.

MB: Sure. Audio Fidelity is an offshoot of DCC Compact Classics. I was with CBS Record for a number of years and then I left CBS and joined Lou Adler at Ode Records – which was Cheech & Chong and Carole King’s Tapestry into The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We had about a ten-year run with that, then we sold the company. I became President of Island Records where we had Bob Marley and Steve Winwood, and it was just before U2 emerged, so we had Third World and Grace Jones. After that, I started DCC Compact Classics, which was one of the first CD only labels. It was in 1986 when CDs were just becoming available, so we built up a nice reputation for our compilations and the quality of our sound. Then in the ’90s, we were able to move into an area that I was really comfortable with – the audiophile, high end of our business. I was able to do 24 karat gold discs and 180 vinyl, which is a high end thick vinyl, and we had a great group of people working there that had wonderful taste and a great knowledge of music. The titles that we were putting out from The Eagles and The Doors, for example, were titles that we not only loved as a group of people, they were titles that had not been remastered in a number of years, and after 15 years with DCC Compact Classics, I left and formed Audio Fidelity–that was ten years ago. I started it with the same idea and intentions that I had at DCC Compact Classics, which was to take classic artists and make them look and sound better than ever. So, we’re still doing 24 karat gold and 180 vinyl. It’s a nice life to lead, getting to listen to and work with artists you love. And to this day, we’re putting out titles like The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel, etc. We like to say, “It’s for people that can hear the difference.” That’s what Audio Fidelity is all about.

MR: Can you explain to us how you get that sound?

MB: First, we select a title that we feel is viable and commercial enough and we see the last time that that title was remastered. If something was remastered in the last 2 or 3 years, no matter how good we think we are, we can’t make it sound that much better. So, we try to go back and get something that hasn’t been remastered in the last 10 or fifteen years, and if it’s been remastered in the last five or six years we just sit down and access whether or not we can make it sound better. Then, we work with Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, our engineers, who are two brain surgeons when it comes to this stuff. They’re the best in the world when it comes to getting the best sound possible. We’re not heavy-handed in our approach – we don’t try to impose our sound on the recording. What we do is open up the sound so that it sounds like when it was originally recorded. Then, we go back and recreate the original artwork for each album. An album like James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James had different artwork when it was originally released than it did when it was released years later on CD, so we go back and recreate everything to restore it to its original state.

MR: What are some of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on over the years?

MB: Well, one was a project that I worked on in the mid-’80s called Toga Rock, which was a bunch of classic rock songs that we put together for people who were throwing a Toga party. Another favorite for me was The Best Of Tragedy where we put together a bunch of tragic songs–we even put a warning on that record because we realized after listening to 5 or 6 songs that if someone were to listen to that album alone all the way through, they were liable to end it all. (laughs) Another favorite was the Club Verboten box set, which was a compilation of contributions to music by gay artists and writers. That turned out to be a labor of love because once you opened that door, you found out some very interesting and fabulous things about a lot of artists. Then, or course, getting to work with artists like The Eagles and The Doors and getting to know their music and how they recorded. At one point, we worked with the Sinatra family and created a line called Artanis, which is Sinatra spelled backwards. Frank Sinatra recorded every performance he ever did with Wally Heider, so the sound quality was fantastic, and thanks to the Sinatra estate, we were able to go in and remaster a great collection of songs for Sinatra 57 for his 57th birthday. A lot of those types of things were the things that I most enjoyed working on. We also did some Paul McCartney stuff that was amazing. It was recorded in Ghana and when we heard the tapes, it sounded so raw that it was amazing to listen to the sound that he got from a small recording studio in Ghana. We also did Ringo, and we couldn’t find the master tapes, we looked all over, and Capitol records couldn’t find the master tapes. So, one day, Steve Hoffman was in the office and he walked into my office and told me that Ringo was on the phone, and I asked, “Ringo who?” and he told me that it was the Ringo and that he said that he had the tapes. So, we had Ringo Starr calling us to let us know that he had the master tapes and was willing to let us use them.

MR: Didn’t you have a similar or pretty interesting incident with a collection you put together of Ray Charles’ music?

MB: (laughs) Sort of. What happened was that we asked for master tapes from his people and they sent over cassette tapes that sounded absolutely horrible. I had to call them up and tell them that we need the actual master tapes because we were going to be making CDs, which was a completely different sound. So, Ray called us up himself and said that he was doing an appearance in New Orleans and he would be back to his home soon, and that we should meet him in his studio in South Central, Los Angeles. We went over to his studio and while we were there, we got into a little debate. He was walking around with a cup of libation, and it was his studio so he could walk around fairly easily because he knew where everything was. Well, he took one wrong step and fell down and he managed to hold on to his cup firmly and not spill a drop. (laughs) After helping him up and spending hours debating with him that those weren’t the original tapes, what we found out was that the studio where a lot of his tapes were stored were labeled in Braille. So, years and years ago, someone pulled out a master tape, but it was for the 8-track master and it was compressed to death, and they had been sending that around the world as the master for about 10 or 12 years. Steve Hoffman finally went in there with their engineer and found the actual masters and we played them for Ray, then played the masters that they sent us. It was a world of difference, and of course he said, “Why didn’t you just tell me that’s what you wanted?” (laughs) He was an absolute joy to work with and we became friends and there was even a point in our relationship where he would call me up saying that he needed to talk to me so I would drive down to South Central only to get there and realize that he merely wanted to see what was going on with me. Sometimes, we would even play chess, so I can honestly say that I used to play chess with Ray Charles even though I never won. (laughs) And the label was able to put out Ray Charles that sounded the best it had sounded since the songs’ original releases.

MR: What are some of your upcoming releases?

MB: Well, this month, we have Bad Company on 24 karat gold, and we also have Carly Simon’s No Secrets coming out soon. Both of those sound just amazing and they’re all terrific people to work with. Then, we have James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James coming out soon and A Space In Time by Ten Years After. We also have some Bryan Adams, Sade, Lenny Kravits, Marianne Faithfull, The Wallflowers, The Roches, and some other coming up on vinyl. And on 24 karat, we have some Rush, Elton John, and Heart’s Greatest Hits. So, we have some pretty great stuff coming up.

MR: Because you’ve been in this industry for quite a while now, can you share your thoughts on the current state of it?

MB: Obviously, because we’re in the audiophile high end, the idea of downloads is less a factor for us because the people that make an actual investment in 24 karat gold and 180 vinyl are less likely to want downloads for their iPod’s. That’s what the industry is coming to – it’s not so much about quality as it is mobility. People want to be able to take 200 songs with them and listen to them wherever they’d like. But the people who are in the audiophile world are ones that still want to sit down and listen to music – they don’t want to be moving, they don’t want to be in their cars, they just want to be sitting down and enjoying a cigar and a glass of wine and listening to an artist. Those are the people that we deal with. They don’t mind spending more money if you can give them what you want. So, the state of the music business is one thing, but the state of our business is another. It’s changed in the regard that the person who first started buying our stuff in the ’90s when he was 20 is now 40. The audience has changed, so we cater to a select group of people and we know what they like and we know what they don’t like and in most cases, we’re close to being on the same page with them. So, you have the traditional record business, which is going through a whole bunch of changes, and then you have the audiophile business, which is going through less change because it’s more specific. It’s two industries. People are now talking about how the growth of vinyl now is incredible. Compared to the decline of traditional CD’s, the growth of vinyl has grown 2 or 3% of the real marketplace, but it’s not going to change anybody’s life financially. The artists themselves are starting to take control and wanting to put their stuff out on vinyl because it’s such a wonderful sound. Our 24 karat gold records come as close to that warmth that you expect to hear from vinyl as you could hope for. There is also the issue of many music stores closing so that we have less places to ship to. But those stores that still exist aren’t just surviving, they’re thriving. They’ve chosen to do things differently – in other words they carry titles like ours and things that Walmart and Best Buy won’t necessarily carry. They’ve built up an audience and a group of customers who trust them. The online industry has also been fantastic for us because all of a sudden, we can sell records to people in Siberia. (laughs) These new markets that we’ve never been able to get to before are now opening up to us. They’re looking for a quality sound, and we’ve got it.

MR: What advice would you give to new artists?

MB: I would say approach the industry with the attitude that you are going to make it on your terms and in your own way. I wouldn’t think of things in the old terms of needing a record company behind you to make it. In this day and age, you can pursue a career from wherever you are – you don’t want to hop on a plane to New York and start banging on the doors of record companies, it doesn’t happen like that. The best thing you can do is find a club and go make your chops at a club – get used to singing in front of a crowd, and get comfortable writing songs. Just play anywhere and everywhere you can, then, when you get the chops, go find a place where you can play a gig. Go 50 miles from your house, then go 100 miles from your house. After that, try setting up a tour where you can open for someone. Make some money and try to survive doing this and I believe eventually you’ll find your niche. There are artists now who only have their material available at their concerts and online and they can sell 100,000 albums a year – it’s not unusual for artists who don’t have record contracts to sell 50,000 to 100,000 records on their own. When you sell that many records on your own at $14 apiece rather than the $2 you’d get from a record company, all of a sudden, it becomes a wonderful way to spend your life on the road. Plus, you’re doing what you love to do. At that point, the record labels will find you, you don’t have to sit and wait in some lobby for a record executive to say no for whatever reason. So, I would suggest forgetting the old way of thinking about going and seeking out the record companies and instead, go through the internet and through YouTube because now you can do it on your terms and better than ever before. If you’re still thinking you can send a demo into a record company and have them be impressed and contact you, it’s not going to happen. We still consistently get checks from iTunes for blues compilations that we created years ago, so the internet has become an incredible tool in getting music to the masses.

MR: Great advice from someone who has had such a great career in the music industry. Marshall, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

MB: Thanks, Mike. And I just want to say that the music industry is still such a great place to be, and if I had to do over, I would do it the same way and I would do it in the music industry.

Transcribed by Evan Tyrone Martin