Quote

With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition.

Artists were nurtured back in the '70s. Their music was developed by the record companies.

When you look at what we can call the golden era of concept albums, which starts in the mid or late '60s and ends maybe in the early '80s, it's an interesting time for music. You see all these very established and popular acts and bands and artists that were somehow on the top of their game but really trying to experiment.

Then, when the Depression came, all of this changed completely. Since that time, the entire public is of a very different sort and there was not so much support for contemporary music in a direct way.

Newspapers and magazines didn't want pictures of musicians behaving badly back then. Now, because of the Internet, that's all the media wants.

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I'd say probably in the early '70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, 'cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

A lot that was happening in 2005, 2006, good and bad, the beats reflected it. It was a lot of money around. People was making music to throw money to.

The moment artists can just do what they love to do then music will go right back to where it used to be. I mean back in the '60s and '70s and '80s, that's what it was.

The music industry is a very rough industry. Many years ago, I think it was even rougher in the sense that a lot of it was predicated on image.

When it all started, record companies - and there were many of them, and this was a good thing - were run by people who loved records, people like Ahmet Ertegun, who ran Atlantic Records, who were record collectors. They got in it because they loved music.