Monday, March 18, 2024

Special Edition: The Living Legends Foundation Presents The Living Legends Series with Herb Trawick

herb trawick
Herb Trawick

*In this special edition of The Living Legends Series, EURweb.com contributor Gwendolyn Quinn talks with music legend Herb Trawick, the creator, executive producer and co-host of the critically-acclaimed digital show, Pensado’s Place.

On October 6, The Living Legends Foundation will honor Trawick with the Creative Visionary Award at its 25th anniversary gala at the Taglyan Cultural Complex in Hollywood. “To think your life’s work would be honored and put you in categories with the like of Quincy Jones, Clarence Avant, Russell Simmons and others is both extraordinary and humbling,” says Trawick. “The Living Legends Foundation had the foresight 25 years ago to recognize folks while they are still with us. They have done so with the highest of integrity and the best of intentions. We honor and congratulate them on 25 years of service and commitment even as they honor others.”

With a highly successful career spanning decades, Trawick’s roles as artist manager, label executive, advisor and Broadway producer, has earned him the reputation as one of black music’s most prized and treasured leaders. Trawick has built many careers and brands across multiple entertainment platforms including award-winning R&B recording artist and songwriter Brian McKnight, who sold over 20 million albums with record-breaking global tours. He also partnered with Earth, Wind & Fire’s front man, Maurice White to bring the group’s music catalogue to the Great White Way. Trawick’s work as a music executive and consultant has paired him with various record labels including Interscope, RCA, Mercury, Capitol, Motown, and Def Jam, just to name a few.

Trawick shares his journey on his pioneering new digital platform, his hard and valuable career lessons and advice from his partnership with Maurice White.

Gwendolyn Quinn: Please tell our readers about Pensado’s Place and how and why it was created?

Herb Trawick: Pensado’s Place was created because I recognized a void in the market and then my friend, former client and now partner Dave Pensado had a stroke and needed an idea. He had a miraculous recovery and the journey began.

GQ: How has Pensado’s Place impacted and changed the music/entertainment industry?

HT: The show pulled back the cover on where the true intersection of art and commerce lies. That’s the producers and engineers who are the last stops before it reaches the public. That was a hugely influential market, global in nature, and all who have the tools now because of technology and who needed a voice and place to gather. We became their champion. Now we are in 203 countries and over 500,000 people a month watch us, and we do live events everywhere, have a ton of sponsors and have created the largest award show for this community. The Grammy Awards support us because in their model they only have one award where the people who actually make the hits get recognized, which is nuts. Their show is all artist focused. Our show focuses on the actual makers and craftsmen who do it. In three years, our award show has had participation from Saturday Night Live, Pitbull, Paul McCartney, Steven Tyler, DJ Ali, Pink, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and on and on.

GQ: As a longtime successful manager, tell us why you think there’s a lack of good African American managers and what’s your advice for young people interested in pursuing a career in music management?

HT: I don’t believe there’s a lack of good African-American managers as much as there is a lack of hit acts. There are no lessons for young managers to take all the way to the top. The game has changed dramatically and the independent world has people conflicted. There is a new math out there. I often challenge young people to pay their rent with SoundCloud likes or Facebook subscribers. To see if they can tour with that. There is an anti-major label bias out there. While I understand because it’s so closed, it’s also shortsighted because you don’t learn how to make money. You’re just busy and broke. Every now and then there is a breakthrough story. Stands to reason that if the record business is struggling, the ripple effect hits everybody. By the way, there is the same lack of good Caucasian, Asian, female, male and everything else managers as well. All that said, yes, there is absolute institutional racism still in place, specifically affecting black folks more than others.

GQ: What advice do you have for young and independent artists interested in pursuing and furthering their careers in the music business?

HT: Learn how to make a living. Period. Dream but don’t be romantic about the outcome. The “ism” in our business is age-ism. Your window is short as hell and once it’s closed, it can be closed permanently. Waste the opportunity at your own peril.

GQ: In an effort to move the business of black music forward, what are some of the areas you feel we need to focus on as a community?

The sense of community that was so evident in our business is gone. We don’t support each other. The reasons are many and some of it is just our own black pathology that is historic. Some of it is racism. Some of it is desperation. But I observe everybody out here swinging, but mostly alone. We don’t mentor as much, and some of it is because the veterans are now locked out of the process. It’s also a bit of an oxymoron that we have a black music business. The folks that run these areas, both major and independent are all kinds of colors now. That’s not necessarily bad, but less communal interests, less community. Another reason is technology and how we are generally late movers in those spaces, particularly those of us who are older. Not good.

GQ: What has been your most challenging time in the record/music business?

HT: I have had a million of them. Mostly entrepreneurial challenges. You live with risk, stress, peaks and valleys, you work too much, neglect yourself and your family and then you have unbelievable wins. Then the cycle starts over. With our current success it still is an absolute grind. During my long journey, I have been fired, had to bankrupt my company at one point, been lied about, had to go to war with others, been broke, hurt people you love, and owe people. Same as a lot of folks. I’ve also had amazing victories, made money for myself and others, helped people, helped people that I admire and look up to compare my skills in lofty unreal terms and I always, always, always try to provide a hand up. It’s the balance that keeps you human, but also kicks your ass.

GQ: Share with our readers some of the hardest and most difficult lessons you’ve learned during your career in the music/entertainment industry?

HT: It’s the old song. ‘It’s a Thin Line between Love and Hate.’ As a leader, I have had mostly amazing experiences with staff and people who have been willing to take the ride. I have hired very tough and bright people. Try having Sharon Heyward as your VP (laughs). By the way, she is one of the best at it I have ever seen, ride or die and a record business and human treasure. Those types only work for you and with you if they respect you. But if you hurt them, even if unintentionally, it can go south quick. And that same passion that is in love, can be equally strong in anger. Whether employee or artist, or business relationship or whatever. Took me a minute to understand that passion equivalency, and it hurts when it’s negative.

GQ: What has been the best advice you received about the entertainment/music industry and from whom?

I live for that kind of stuff. Devour information from the greats. My earliest influence was David Geffen and it morphed very quickly into Clarence Avant, who had me come to his office early in my career, sat me down for four hours and made me watch him take calls. Hardly said a word to me, but I watched the range of people who wanted his counsel and it blew me away. I was in my 30s. I walked into his office wanting to be a big record executive. I left wanting to be a Clarence.  Jheryl Busby years later before he passed paid me my biggest business compliment and said there is Clarence Avant and there are two junior Clarences and you are one of them. Humbling to think that your counsel is valued at that level by others.

But by far and away, without question, I got to spend intimate, deep and personal time with Black Beethoven, Maurice White. Changed me in ways I didn’t think was possible. I didn’t even realize it until his memorial. When he said to me on one of our trips in his whisper, “I watch the way you listen to music, you listen like I do, you hear like a musician, you have the instincts of a showman, and you let the universe in.” I was done. I never have to hear another word from anybody ever. From one of the all-time masters. Somebody I deeply, deeply, deeply loved and continue to love.

GQ: As a producer on the Great White Way, tell us about your experience of bringing Earth, Wind & Fire’s music/brand to Broadway in “Hot Feet.” Is that something you would like to do again?

Possibly my greatest show business experience. I have had the blessing and curse of being ahead and that can be lonely. [Gwendolyn you worked with us]. Jukebox musicals where not favored by the critics in 2003. Now with “In the Heights” and “Hamilton,” they are the hottest things going. While we failed economically and critically, we won with the fans each and every night. The bonding of cast and crew and producers, living in New York on Broadway and in Washington, DC in previews, learning the craft and most importantly it’s where Reese (Maurice) and I really got tight. We worked together creatively, we learned together, he entrusted me with his Parkinson’s and he was very private. We talked a lot, we shared a lot, and I learned a ton. Hell yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

GQ:  What are you most optimistic about in black music?

HT: The music. There are great artists of all colors and stripes doing their version of black music. From pop to country to hip hop to indie, here and around the globe. The country is browner and we are finally breaking out of boxes, using new influences and tools, pushing the envelope. You can’t tell by radio because of their restrictions, but if you look just a little deeper, you will be amazed.

gwendolyn quinn (hair)
Gwendolyn Quinn

Gwendolyn Quinn is an award-winning media specialist with a career spanning over 25 years. She is the founder of the African American Public Relations Collective (AAPRC) and the publisher of Global Communicator. Her weekly columns, “Inside Broadway with Gwendolyn Quinn” and “My Person of the Week” are published with EURweb.com. Quinn is also a contributor to Souls Revealed and Handle Your Entertainment Business. Contact her at [email protected].

 

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