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MARCH 2011 TAXI Road Rally 2010

Michael Lloyd, Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient, Part 2
Interviewed by Michael Laskow
Note: I’m printing the introduction I did on stage again for those of you who didn’t read Part One of this interview last month. I want you to know a little something about the man answering the questions. – Ed. If there’s one word that exemplifies what this weekend is about, it’s generosity. Did you notice in the really long registration line how generous the people you met were in giving you tips, not only about songwriting, but just about how to work the Rally and everything related? So generosity… that’s a word that I think you’re going to think about all weekend long, and nobody exemplifies that more than our Lifetime Achievement Award recipient this year, Michael Lloyd. Michael was Vice President of MGM Records at 20-years-old. Can you imagine? He has had chart-topping hits that expand an amazing six decades. Six decades! He’s produced more than a hundred Gold and Platinum records in his lifetime. He has provided scoring, music supervision, songwriting and music production for well over 100 motion pictures, 16 TV movies, 13 TV specials, and 35 TV series. What an amazing career. Michael’s work has been recognized by the Oscars, the American Music Awards, the Dove Awards, and the Golden Globes. He also happens to be a partner in Curb Records. After all these accomplishments I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever met in the music business who is more supportive, encouraging, helpful, humble and, most of all, generous. Michael takes dozens of CDs from our members every year at the Road Rally, and he listens to every one of them. And he calls them up. I get calls from people, “Michael Lloyd just called me from his cell phone in his car and told me what he thought of my song.” Who would have the time? Michael Lloyd. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me tremendous pleasure to introduce to you TAXI’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for 2010, Mr. Michael Lloyd! [applause]

Michael Lloyd (left) being interviewed during the Road Rally by Michael Laskow (right).

You have the rare combination of an equal balance of left and right brain skills. You’re an excellent businessman, and I think that has done so much for your career. I know so many musicians don’t want to deal with business. It’s not cool to market or sell yourself, but everybody wants to be successful. How do you balance those two things in your life? Did you have to work on developing that? How can the people in our audience do that? Well, Mike [Curb] was a big help for me on that. Truthfully, I am probably not oriented emotionally to want to deal with business stuff, but it’s become a necessity. I think that in terms of promoting yourself or talking about yourself, that’s always the hardest thing in the world to do. At a certain point, though, you have to be your own marketing person. Because if you don’t believe in yourself and have a way to convey it—and I’m not saying to be arrogant about it—but if you don’t have a way to convey what your talents are and what you can bring to the table, perhaps the

other person or people that you’re dealing with aren’t going to be that aware of it. They’ve got their own thing. So you do have to be able to talk about yourself and promote and market yourself; otherwise, you get lost. Sometimes it is personality, sometimes it’s schmoozing at meetings or dinners or events or whatever. Whatever your particular way is fine, but you do have to let people know what you can do for them, not necessarily for what you can just do, but maybe what you can do for them. Then maybe in combination— whether that’s a record company or something—you can be successful. Because, after all, this is a business; it’s the music business. So it’s the creative part linked to business. Unfortunately, with the big record companies, it has become so much about the business part of it that the creative part has just been sucked out. But, all the more reason for you to start thinking about how to separate yourself and do the right thing in Continued on page 56
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Recording - March 2011

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