A CONVERSATION WITH TIM O'BRIEN (continued)

PM: After all those releases with Sugar Hill, what changed that made you start your own record company, Howdy Skies Records?

TO: The impetus to start the record label was that Dirk Powell and I had talked about making a CD to be a companion to the novel Cold Mountain. Obviously, this was a hit book. Not only critically acclaimed, but commercially successful. And the music was such a part of the book that it was obvious to us that somebody was gonna put it out, and market it with the paperback when it comes out. That was at Folk Alliance back in '98 that we met and talked about it. I said that that was really a good idea, and I'd been thinking along the same lines. Dirk had already approached a few labels, including Sugar Hill and Rounder, and they said they'd get back with him…and Dirk was on it, said we'd better move on this, if we're gonna do it.

So I talked with Bev Paul, who had worked for Sugar Hill, but was a freelance consultant at the time. She's now back as General Manager of Sugar Hill. So I proposed that maybe we should do it on our own, that perhaps we could get distribution. Bev worked on a distribution deal with DNA. It's hard to get distribution when you're a small fish, because they want volume. They knew that I'd sell some units. But the original idea didn't work out, which we found out as soon as we'd done some demos and sent it off to the book publishers. See, we thought we'd get together and record four or five things, and then get some feedback from the book publishers. It all fell together really fast, so we basically sent the whole thing off at once.

They said that the movie rights had already been sold, and the soundtrack was part of that deal, so you'd have to clear it away. We got distracted, I'll say, by all the legalities involved. I think we got some funny advice. But rather than jump into it before knowing we'd done it as legally as possible, it ended up coming out on its own, and sold consistently well. But we thought originally that we'd sell it in book stores, so we set up this idea of our own record company. When the record was finally ready to come out, it was time to record Real Time with Darrell Scott. I figured why not keep this label going, we got the distribution sorted out, whether the record with Darrell was on it or not. Owning your masters is a good thing. It ends up being the same drill. Instead of trying to get money out of them to do things, I make the decision, and it's usually about the same decision.

PM: And how does the money work out, less units but greater profit, etc....

TO: In the end, it pays off. But right, it's less penetration, greater profit. You know, half of what you sell in this game is off the stage. Those profits are higher, so it all works out. It's a lot of work. Right now, we're in the process of licensing those titles to Sugar Hill, because DNA went under. When Two Journeys came out, it sold great, and then they went belly up. It continues to sell well, but I won't see any money from it. It's part of the gamble, the little guy's exposed. In the bankruptcy, the big bills will get paid first, and most of the little guys will lose out. Sugar Hill was also distributed by DNA, but not that much of their catalog.

PM: It sounds like a great relationship you have with the luthier Mike Kemnitzer.

TO: Yeah, Michael Kemnitzer is a great bud to me. That mandolin he made for me was the first A model he ever made, he kind of gave it to me for a song. He just wanted to get it out there. I started playing it a lot, and he sold a lot of mandolins, and they're really good. So he made me some more instruments. He made me another A model, made me an F-5, and a guitar shaped bouzouki. It's a wonderful symbiosis, because it's a good calling card for him. Now I've got a mandola, too.

PM: Are those instruments that you'll play solo at home to accompany yourself?

TO: Oh yeah, certainly, it's that kind of thing. The mandolin's a little twinkly to be on its own for long, but the lower pitched instruments are good for all that. The mandola or certainly the octave mandolin are great for solo playing.

PM: So, we discussed some of Dirk Powell's soundtrack efforts earlier. Certainly you or you and Darrell seem like excellent foils for such work. Is there any of that afoot, or on the horizon?

TO: Well, I barely made it on to the O Brother soundtrack. I was one of the singers on "Down to the River to Pray." But I haven't done any soundtracks yet to speak of. Working on it, though. Got the publishers more stoked on that than anything, because I think they now see a great potential for that. And it looks like T-Bone Burnett is gonna do the soundtrack for Cold Mountain. I don't think it's a done deal yet, but he's the smartest man in Country music at the moment. At least, that's the perception, and it may be true. And it looks like he'll get that account. If he does, I hope to be participating in that project.

PM: Is T-Bone a fan of Songs From the Mountain?

TO: Well, he's always got his ear to the ground for soundtrack gigs, so he probably heard about it early on. As soon as his name came up, of course, I sent him the music. I think he may have known about it already. And, you know, he listens pretty widely.

There's an interesting bit about the first cut on O Brother, that chain gang song. I always wondered if any of the people singing that song knew that they were on a #1 Country record. It's a Lomax [field] recording from the 30s or 40s. I just read an article about it the other day. T-Bone said he'd first heard it about ten years ago, he knows about that stuff. They did actually find the guy who sang the lead on it, and made him his first payment of 20 grand or something, and he went to The Grammys. That's great. There's a bunch of that stuff on the Moby record, too. Whenever they use that stuff [Alan Lomax field recordings], the Lomax family has assumed the responsibility of tracking down the artists whenever possible. The Lomax family makes money on that stuff, they make half the money. Moby did several cuts on Play which are from those kind of recordings, Vera Hall sings several things on that record. It's beautiful, what they did with that.  continue

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