Some have referred to her as the female version of me. I don't know if that's a compliment to her. But it's definitely a compliment to me. Let's do this helping you navigate the music industry. Here's Rick Barker with the music industry blueprint podcast. So this episode of the podcast I'm super excited someHave told me that there is a female version of be out there in the world and I did not quite understand what they meant. But what they said was is there's a person who also has experience in the business that's doing everything they can to help others and they said Rick you need to meet Judy stay key and I said, oh I know who Judy is I said because I tracked her down a couple years ago for an artist that I was working with and what I told Judy before as I thought it would be a lot harder to get to her, but it wasn't Because you are such a wonderful giving person. So Judy introduce yourself to the music industry blueprint audience. And then let's just see where this conversation goes. You got it. Hi, everybody. I always say that I came out of the womb singing and dancing and it's interesting because a lot of my clients would say the same thing back to me, but music has been my whole entire life. I mean, I just I never wanted to do anything that wasn't music-related. I thought I thought I would be a performer. I went to USC and studied piano and I studied voice and I acted a little when I got out of school. There really was no internet and my parents didn't quite know how to guide me in that way. And so I entered the business and I was in the traditional music business for over 30 years as a music publisher. And even though I was tempted sometimes to go into A&R and other other areas. I stayed in publishing because It was the area that developed and managed the songwriters and no matter where you were in your career. You always had to go back to the beginning and write a new song. It was like starting a new book every single time. And I love that process. I love coming back to the beginning. What are we going to say this time? So I did that for over 30 years and I had a lot of success. I signed rank for Patrick and John Shanks away from Kevin kadish while Freeman and Tim James and all these he's really big pop pop producers pop Riders and then I started developing artists and out very fortunate in that. I met develop shoko show Branch Katy Perry. Julie Williams worked with little big town at work with Gavin DeGraw just the the list goes on and on and on. So in 2009-10 years ago, I left warner/chappell music. Isaac my last place of employment for 20 years and started my own thing. And the reason being is that I feel like the development is really is one of the most important parts for it is the most important part of the purest product. How do you set your foundation? And that's what I was doing for all my writers Without Really Ever putting it into any written form. I just did it but when you know, I left one or chapel and can say well I work forward or travel. That's all you need to know it so well. Judy's taking this is what I do. So I owed my methodology down. I wrote a book. I put on a TED talk to years ago I have Individual clients I put on treats songwriting takes all with the all with the the bait that my my my theme of my methodology based on my methodology that it all starts with the song. So no matter what you want to do. If you want to go have hire a producer if you want to go tour if you none of that stuff can happen unless you got the songs, right? And so I took it a step further and that everything starts with a song. What does that mean? And my methodology is really simple, it's based on two questions. First question is what is a song song as the integration of your voice the lyrics and the melody, we integrate your emotions. That's the melody their stories. That's the lyric in your voice. You have to have some voice. Otherwise, it doesn't get off the pavement in order for those three things to be as good as they can be so you can integrate them together. You're going to have to take care of yourself body mind and soul for the rest of your life. And that's where I think that that I really found this extra thing with you because there's a lot of people that will teach voice and there's a lot of people that will teach performance and there's a lot of people that will teach movement and you started going with into which I think super important and I think too as you were talking earlier, it's like the Publishers are the A&R people today and you were kind of ahead of your time because 10 years ago when you said you were going out to help people that's what Civics that's what's expected of. All of them now the traditional a and our days are done because we went from a business of splitting dollars to splitting percentages of pennies. So now they're looking for you to come developed a they need you to understand who you are as an individual. What is your brand? What is your message? Is it proven in the marketplace? Because now the doors are down and there are no barriers to the consumer. There are no barriers to your fans. So they're like you go test it out. And then come back to us once you've got a buzz or once you have something going on and the right there. That leaves it over when you don't have any barriers or anything in my mom can submit songster Grey's Anatomy. The quality is that's what it comes down to. Yep. That's what's going to stick out. Yeah, and that's why I believe what I am doing and you're doing a with some other people. There are so important. Is that as I tell all my clients is that if you've got a song for Faith Hill, I'll give you the number myself all sent it myself. Okay, if you've got a song then absolutely Call you can call anybody you want don't don't start calling me. Make sure you have the product person you've developed yourself and most of these kids think well. I'm going to get something on you know, so-and-so like put her stuff on YouTube and she was a star of the next day. You know, what I also think to Judy is that people need to spend more time getting people like yourself people like Susan Koch people like Shelly paikin, you know that you can you can pay for their time to listen to your songs because there is a lot of Realistic artists that feel that they have the next song for Faith Hill, but what they don't understand is that they are also competing with everyone at every major label in Nashville and New York and Los Angeles for that same right to cut that one song that Faith Hill might cut. So what what I'm encouraging people to do is to say look become a student of the game become a master of your craft go continue to learn and flourish. - be patient don't be in a hurry. We're not curing cancer will be okay. If you don't show up tomorrow, you know, if you want to do this for a living and you want to build a career, it's like you can't all of a sudden one day decide that you want to be a brain surgeon and start operating tomorrow, but for whatever reason songwriters think they write one song and they're ready to get it to the biggest artist on the planet or someone, you know wins a contest in their Hometown and they're ready for a record deal. And that's what I love like with you and your book the songwriter survival. You know, you just go in and you're teaching them you're educating them. I always tell people I say look you guys go create it. I'll help you get rid of it, but the songs can't suck because right now there's it's so noisy out there. There's no shortage. Like you mentioned your mom can pitch a song to Grey's Anatomy. What's going to cut through is a Kick-Butt Melody. It's either going to be a vocal tone. It's going to be a production piece. It's going to be something but just make sure your breaking through the noise for the right reasons because a lot of you are breaking through the noise for the wrong reasons and you're going viral for the wrong reasons. So let's make sure if you want to have a career you do this thing, right? And you know, it's really interesting. Is that what I find is that I mean 99% of all the kids that are come all kids but everything that's come to my Retreats my clients and support most of them when you give them some information and some knowledge some, you know, something that they can learn. They say it it just they're so happy. They're so happy that somebody has given them something that is actually looks like oh wait a minute now that I know that I can put that with this that I know and look where it gets. It gets me some place further and that's what that's what fuels me is that they're all like they're just thirsty for the knowledge. It's the AHA moments. It's like in the difference between a great artist and a superstar is usually work ethic and they were Prepared to take advantage of a Pacific opportunity that came to their mind and that's the thing right now is that the people that are attracted to me? I think are also the same type that are attracted to you because we do charge for our services and I'll tell you why I do because those who pay pay attention and I give plenty of free opportunities for those people that want to pick my brain. They can pick it through the podcast. I give a free copy of my book if they want it, but if we're going to sit down and work specifically on your stuff, that's education. Oh and my 30 years Judy's 30 years, you know, we didn't get that for free and the key thing is that we don't mind having conversations with people but we have a problem or I'll speak for me. What I have a problem with is when you come to me for advice and you spend most your time with the yeah buts because the yeah buts are are an incurable disease. If every time I say something to you and your response is yeah, but you're the wrong person because we can't that disease has to go. I hope they find a cure for the yeah, but I have not found it. But when we get people inside of our world that we're able to have real conversations with because one of the things that attracted me to you is there's a lot of people out there that have opinions. There's a lot of people out there that are great marketers. There's a lot of people out there that will tell you everything, you know need to know about the music industry, but there are very few people that can show you what to do because they've done it and you are a practitioner. You're not a book reporter. You are a field reporter everything you've learned you've done. So when I'm able to introduce you to my folks, I get super excited about that one because you know, it's like when you saw something early and some of the artists that you mentioned what's interesting about them is some people missed on them, but you didn't. True and I know that that can be said by all for a lot of artists that I do the thing that I how I I've always practiced and how is done my job is that not only did I identify the talent that I really spent time with them? I did just sign them and let them go being with Cheryl we spent practically every day together, you know with all my writers. I mean every Kevin kadish John Screen it was an everyday thing it was what are you working on? What how did that better go tell me about this time. It was you know, when you're developing something. I've had somebody I felt like I was mom, you know, and it's like when they're that in this incubator and they're trying, you know, they're trying out things in their building their career. It's like I I'm the kind of person who's just like I wanted to be there for all you know to make sure that everything was in place till like two weeks down the road all of a sudden. It's like oh by the way, I'm not crazy about that. So but why don't you try so I was a very Hands-On person. You also seem to have this Knack because for some of the younger folks listening you might not understand who John Shanks is or Kevin kaduk. I mean, they're also great producers, you know, Kevin with his development of Meghan Trainor. You know John's legendary with what he's done. I think that's where Callie kept getting the you know, it's like Judy steaky has like four degrees of separation. Kevin Bacon has six you have like four and everything. She kept looking at connecting back to you. One other thing that I always share with people to is, you know, one of the things when Taylor and I first came out they said wow, here's the sixteen-year-old to just showed up with these songs from 12 to 14. All she did was right. She did not do contests. Didn't go out and try to sing karaoke. She wasn't doing pageants national anthems. All she did was right. She developed her craft and that's what I tell folks. It's like when a young person comes to me. I said look unless you're wanting to go to Disney or Nickelodeon where you met age Out start taking this time to learn start taking this time to practice start taking this time to develop yourself. And that's why I started doing what I dicks like felt guilty. All these dads would show up with their daughters and cowboy boots. In sundresses thinking that was the magic formula and I'm like no no. No, we gotta go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing my first ever young adult Workshop in a I saw that on your website. I love that and I've got a 12 year old who is absolutely amazing just starting out but she's a Natural Instincts natural talent and it's so lovely and her parents are so supportive of her because they're like, we're not musical. We're not quite sure what to do. They found me. And they're like great. Let's just put her in these classes and you know, I wrote a Blog about that this week as far as like making the commitment to learn yes to take at our take voice and take creative writing and all the things all the components that make up a song. It's not just oh I you know, I sing a little tune and I play the guitar. It's you know, it's storytelling. It's performing. It's the body. It's how are you going to how are you going to look? How are you going to feel? I mean, there's so many things. Things about it so that there's so many different classes and workshops that you can take that build on each other especially as a 12 year old. Well, absolutely and it's interesting because I met one when we were in Costa Rica, her name is Janna Bay and she is the same way and what I told her was is for the younger kids to and we just had this I mean, what's that think she's coming. Is this the 12 year old Jeanette. Janab a yeah. Yeah. She's coming to yeah, that's amazing. What's that? Oh, that's funny. Yeah, so I met I met her she was at the same event that D and I were at and her dad over the weekend Ray who's fantastic. He's a doctor and so it's funny because when people purchase anything, so I was running a free plus shipping on my book and I had the strategy I wanted to try I was just going to use Instagram and I said and everybody who orders I'll call and say thank you and they were like, but wait if we're paying like 471, why would you call I said because I just I want to say thank you. So over the weekend, my son and I were leaving from hitting some golf balls and I get this order in this person. Did the book did the upsell and then did the private one year group coaching. So I called up and it was Ray and I said Ray I just wanted to say thank you. He goes Rick. I have no idea. I just clicked all the way through and Jana Bay was so happy and she gets on the phone and I was just like there's this parent that understands while she's into it because she may not be into it after a while one of the things that I shared with her. Was she has this amazing range? And I told her as I said don't do it in every song or it's going to become predictable. It's like Carrie Underwood's first record. We got it. You can hit that note stop screaming at me. You know, I said you need to become a great Storyteller I said, but what's also important for young people is they want to be able to sing along with you and your songs. So if you're constantly going places that they can't go They're not going to be able to relate to you sometimes bring it down and then save that. Home run, you know whack when you get a chance, but you don't have to do it every song and I also tell people to as it's like a lot of times today is a lot of complaining going on and I said look I said if you just are focusing solely on the creation, you're going to be in the inventory business. Let me help you go find an audience. I don't care. If you have the great hamburgers really the greatest hamburger in the world. If you open it up in a town a vegetarian just screwed yourself. So you may think your stuff is fantastic, but there is an audience for it. So let's let's make Sure, the songs are right because it's people are very unforgiving if you're going after industry. It's like people are looking for reasons to say no because it's so crowded. So let's not give them any you can't be judged by what's not out there only by what is out there. Let's send people to where they can find out about you. These Retreats are legendary so they can get all of that from your website. Everything's come on the website. Good Judy steak e.com. I'll make sure that there are links. Yeah. Oh, yeah, no their links to everything dear dear takes care of all of that. Yeah. We're I'll make sure that we can get it from the show notes to also if you haven't picked this up and it'll make a great gift go get the songwriters Survival Guide. There's there's more to your books aren't just about song writing. Your books are also about life. So I think they can apply to a lot of people, you know in a lot. It's funny my social media programs. I have realtors that are in Because they just they understand their houses or their songs. So if I'm teaching people how to get rid of a record their teaching people how to get rid of songs. Everything's about storytelling and life and that's what your books really close one of my passions in my mission this year is I'm not two years ago. I gave a TED Talk in Paris and about the importance of putting songwriting into our schools tells us as a oh, wow, when you learn how to tell a story in you know 200. Words or less? It's really an amazing tool because you really have to learn how to Once Upon a Time. Let me tell you what happened. You don't have three pages to tell you about the brown sweater. All you could to say is I was wearing a brown sweater, right? So the start you really start looking at what your perspective is instead of a very general attitude. So that is that as one of the things when you said, you know, your real estate people love you or you know other profession. Yep, really. Love you. Our methodology and because it speaks to him on a completely different level and that's why I believe the storytelling of songwriting is something that we should be we should be teaching at a younger age. So I think it is a skill that really will help in other areas of Their lives I agree. I agree completely. It's like I went and I got certified last year as a Facebook retargeting expert because I figure if everyone's hanging out online, I better know how to go get them. Especially if I want to grow my business and as we were talking about these one minute videos, I was sitting there and the attention span of the person is about six seconds seven seconds. So if all I'm doing when I show up is say, hey guys, I'm Rick Barker founder of the music industry blueprint former manager at Taylor Swift is Clanging I'm just I'm just rat that out. But if I start with a story, you know, April 4th 1989. I got down on my knees. I was addicted to crack cocaine. I couldn't quit and I asked God to let me die. What was interesting is six months later in 1989 a person was born that I Would One Day end up working with and together. We would go out and change the direction that music was going. My name is Rick Parker founder of the music industry blueprint former manager a superstar Taylor Swift and now I've got a whole different perspective than if I just come out talking about myself in the beginning. I was able to suck people in with this story and kind of bring them along and that's the same way song, right and that's that's why I've always loved the lyrics, you know, I my my final part of my radio career was spent and the Santa Ynez Valley and I had a radio station up there with Marv green and Marv and I started an event years ago called the Nashville nights and Did this songwriting night? I also helped start the Durango version up in the Santa Ynez Valley with Jim and those guys. What's that? I started it with Marv. So on the 10th anniversary, they gave me my little plaque. I haven't been back in a few years. But Marvin died, we started that in 2001 or to can't remember to know that's where he's from though, but you know, I know Yeah him and I are from the same Hometown his brother still lives up there. Marv would come back and every year, I mean one year we hit the jackpot because we had Tim Nichols. Would Live Like You Were Dying was on the chart. We had we had Jeff Stevens. That was there. He had the next Tim McGraw song Leslie satcher. One of my all-time favorite people in the world was there when we've had a whole bunch of great ones Jeff and Tim came to my one of my first Retreats that I did at Warner Chappell my story. Oh Yeah. Yeah, it's a great great and marvelous a warner/chappell rider for a long time. Yeah, that's it's just a small world will listen. I'd love to sneak in and take a peek at one of your Retreats here in Nashville. And if I can ever be of service to you, please let me know please. I would love I would absolutely love to and once again folks. I will make sure that you've got all your ways to connect with Judy and the show notes. If this is your first time checking out the podcast I highly recommend that you Head over to the website music industry blueprint.com while you're there. You can grab a free copy of my book The 150,000 dollar music degree. You can also take the artist assessment. It's really hard to know where you're going. If you don't know where you're starting so let's kind of figure out where you're at in and let me point you in the direction of some resources that can help you out. If you like this, please share it give a review and we'll talk to you on the next episode. Ciao. You've been listening to the music. Industry blueprint podcast with brick Barker. You can follow Rick on Twitter at Rick Barker music and remember you don't drown by falling into the water you drown by staying there.
Are you making sure to develop yourself as an artist before putting your brand out there? Do you make sure that you're feeding your music to the right audience? Will you be sure to break the noise for the right reasons? Listen to this episode of the MIB podcast where special guest Judy Stakee and I discuss how to survive as a songwriter or artist. 👍🏻 "You create it, I'll help you get rid of it - but your songs can't suck." - Rick Barker What do you want to hear from the Music Industry Blueprint Podcast? Tell us here! ***Want to be a guest on the Music Industry Blueprint Podcast? *** Send an email to podcast@musicindustryblueprint.com With the following information: Name, website, social handles, questions you would like to ask Rick and contact information  Resources:  Judy Stakee Songwriter's Survival Guide Free Training “How To Become A Social Media Ninja In Under An Hour.” Click HERE If you're listening after January 24, 2019 & Want the Free Training! Artist Assessment  with Rick:  Facebook Instagram Youtube  Twitter Soundcloud RickBarker.com Contact: podcast@musicindustryblueprint.com for a chance to be a guest on the MIB podcast show  ---   Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/music-industry-blueprint/message 