Have you ever wondered what a manager does? They do a lot and the glimpse behind the scenes is fascinating. Carol Ray has been managing Nick Colionne since his days playing clubs in Chicago before he released his first CD. As a team, they have taken his career from there to where he is now – a chart topping, award winning artist who is in high demand as a headliner at major concert venues and festivals. Their hands-on, DIY approach has served them well and allowed them both to adapt to change and actually thrive on it. She works constantly and works hard because she loves music, loves what she does, and cares about her client and his fans. She and Nick have been the first in our genre to truly embrace the strategies that youth oriented artists have been developing to get their music heard and build and maintain a fan base. They have firmly planted their feet in this new world and they are moving forward, blazing a path that, hopefully, others in our genre will explore because it's not just a matter of growing now. It's a matter of surviving.

Talking to Carol for the first time was like picking up a conversation with a long-time friend. In that spirit, she answered the question before I asked it. She spoke about leaping out of a stable corporate job and into the music business. She had a plan...

CR: I said what the hell, I don't have kids, I'm not overextended, my mortgage payment is reasonable, so let's give it a try. I put a plan into place, saved up some money, and said I'm going to fund myself for two years and at the end of those two years if this isn't a paying gig I'll go back to work for somebody. If I'm right and doing all of this will not only further Nick but will get me into a comfortable position where I can pay my bills, then it's a good decision and I won't have go back and do that. That's what I did. So I live a different lifestyle now. Before, when I was pulling in six figures without blinking, if I wanted something I bought it and didn't think twice. Now my priorities are different.

SV: Lets go very basic to start. What does a manager do, or to be specific, what do you do in your role as a manager?
CR: I believe as a manager it's my job to assess the market, it's my job to pay attention to what's going on, it's my job to take the pulse of the music industry as I see it. But more than anything it's my job to represent my artist and not ask him to compromise in any way what he does or who he is musically. We started together about 15 years ago. It was before his first CD. I managed him for about a year and a half before we put that out. I started this from day one because I believed in Nick and his talent. I saw something extraordinary in him. Besides his great musical gift, I saw a very unique person who was willing to do what he needed to do to get his voice out there, to be heard, to make the music that he wanted to make. We started in Chicago and we started roots up. He had been a member of a very popular jazz band in Chicago that worked constantly. I met him through mutual friends that were in the band and I took an instant liking to him. He's a very nice guy, very funny, very friendly and unbelievably talented. The singer in that group developed throat problems and couldn't work for two months. During that time he went from working sometimes two or three gigs a night to not working at all. He was bemoaning the fact that he wasn't working. I mentioned that he had been talking about being so busy working that he didn't have time to write anymore and now he did have some time, so why not write something. He wrote an unbelievably beautiful song called “East Evergreen.” I listened to that tune and it really hit me that he really needed to be a solo artist. I said to him "this is really great, why don't you think about making your own CD." He started working on the CD and I wound up being very involved in that. By the time the CD was done I knew he was a major talent and he just needed to be out there. Because I didn't know anybody in the business, really, we just did what we felt was right. We weren't tied to any group or any individuals in California or New York, or anywhere, we just did it ourselves. We didn't know we couldn't do it so we just did it. We've always done what we think is right and we are a team.

SV: What was your role in getting the first CD done and out there?
CR: Nick uses me as a consultant on the music because I listen as a listener. I don't pretend to be any kind of musical genius. I have a musical background, my dad was a jazz musician and I grew up with jazz in my house. That's where I think my love of it comes from. I don't have any particular musical talent myself but I do have an ear. If I don't like something there's a good chance that a lot of other people won't either. If I think it's boring or dull or not particularly true to Nick I'll say so and when I do like it it's a keeper.  I do get involved in production and mixing. I have a good ear when it comes to mixing. I let Nick and the engineer do their thing and then I'm the final "tweak" because I hear things they don't hear. I'll hear something and question "What's that sound? Why is that there?". Sometimes they are so focused on what they are focused on and there are so many things going on musically that while they are listening to the lead line or some other element they don't catch that one little weird thing. That's my job - to catch that one little thing.

That's some of what I contribute musically but really my job is more to enable Nick. I don't think he, or any artist should have to compromise. We have never made a record, and never will, that is tailored to fit a marketing strategy. Nick does not make songs for radio. He writes and records his music, then when it's done we sit down with the record label and promoters and pick out the song that is best for radio but he doesn't write to fit a format. He writes for himself. It's my job to protect that and give him an environment where that's what he does. I don't put pressure on him to make a radio friendly record. It's actually my job to do the exact opposite. I know there are situations where a record label will put pressure on an artist to make a certain kind of record and they will go along with it but I never have and never would do that.

The name of our production company is On The Edge Productions and the reason for that is that he has always been on the edge. He probably couldn't have broken into smooth jazz before he did because he sounded too distinctive, he was too edgy, and too different.

SV: Are we talking 1994 when the first album came out or 2003 when he started to become a smooth jazz star?
CR: He has actually had two beginnings. 1994 was the first round when the first album came out. We were very lucky at the time. I don't like to use that word though. I think things happen when they are meant to happen. They happen in their own time, because you've set it up and you're prepared. But there are bits and pieces that you can't plan. A piece that you can't plan happened with that first record because the best friend of the engineer who worked on the project had a mother who had just retired from WNUA, where she had been the executive secretary to the station manager. He brought a copy of it to his mother, she loved it and without us knowing it she sent it to the station manager. He heard it, gave it to the Program Director, who gave it to the Music Director. They called Nick and said they wanted him to come in and talk about the record. He had the flu and he got out of his sickbed and went out in the snow to go down there. They added two cuts. Those were the days when Program Directors actually did all the music, for many of them that latitude is no longer there.

SV: Yeah, back then we did it all locally in-house so if word got out people all over the country could start playing it and create a nice buzz.  We were using research but things weren't rigid. It was a much more supportive infrastructure for breaking new artists.
CR:  The second album was not as successful. Neither was the third. We were on a very small local label.

SV By then the radio format was much more centralized and it was harder to break through and that happened to a lot of artists.
CR: But by the time we were planning the fourth album we had learned a lot. We knew a lot more than about doing the albums. Nick had been building a name for himself regionally and were both more knowledgeable and more sophisticated. He had grown as an artist and I had grown as a manager. Everything kind of came into place. We knew what studio we wanted to use, what engineer we wanted to use, we had it mixed by Craig Bauer who won a Grammy last year. That was the Just Come on In CD. We knew we had a winner. We knew “High Flyin'” was going to take off and do just that. That was kind of our second renaissance.

SV: It takes a lot of faith and perseverance to launch a second renaissance almost 10 years after the first and be committed enough to hang in there until it happens.
CR: What it really boils down to is everything has been really organic for us. We use our gut and our instinct a lot because we've found that if we look at situations and stay true to that then things work out. We developed his career very specifically. I had a background in sales and marketing. That's what I did for Motorola. One of the first things that I felt was that Nick needed to differentiate himself from the pack of talented artists in Chicago who were all scrambling for the same gigs. I looked around at the people who I thought were doing well, looked at what they were doing and thought about what could be done better. That’s how I staked out his career. It was hard for him because he went from making an awful lot of money to making practically nothing. We had to establish him as an artist and start getting gigs, and that meant not showing up at every club every night. It's one thing to be part of a successful group but it's another to go out on your own.  First we had to establish him as a solo artist, then we had to differentiate him from the masses. The way we did that was by limiting his appearances within the city and using that as a bargaining chip with the local club owners. We said they would have to pay Nick more but he wouldn't be playing down the street the next night. His people would come to see him because it would be an event, a destination. His fans would know that if they missed that gig they might not see him for a while so they would have to make an effort. Because they made an effort they would be willing to pay. That worked really well, really fast. Pretty soon he was working in the best places and making a name for himself regionally. By then he was becoming known to the radio people in the area and they were spreading the word. So when Just Come On In came out we were on our way. We haven't looked back and we haven't really changed anything. I don't sell Nick short, He is a draw, he is a tremendous entertainer, and people will pay to see him. I've never overpriced or under priced him and sometimes we've missed out on things because I won't under price him.

SV: The way the industry and economy have been over the last year there has been so much talk about lack - lack of sales, lack of live gigs, lack of pay for live gigs, lack of airplay, lack of whatever - yet Nick seems to be surviving well. You're not living in McMansions or doing the designer lifestyle thing but you're living well.
CR: The reason that that is happening is because we have stayed true to our vision and because we have been able to prove to the festival promoters and booking agents that Nick will sell tickets for them.

SV: Another thing is that you have worked with all the available tools. You've used the new media and new marketing opportunities the Internet has brought while a lot of people have still tried to work the 1987 business model, where you don't really have to get out and get your hands dirty working this whole variety of resources. You guys have become so interactive with your fans. Nick matters to them, that's one reason why you're thriving.
CR: That's how built his career, we would never do anything differently than that. We built it from Chicago on up  and out. We built it by always connecting with the fans. He connects with them. I connect with them. Nick’s fan club knows me, and they know him. They can email me anytime.  They can call me. We talk to those people. They are important to us. The people who come to the autograph table and want a picture and want to chat are important. If Nick is there for two hours that's fine. He will sit there until the last fan has left the table. He connects with the fans when he goes out into the audience. Radio is important because it puts the music in front of people, but there is so much more.

SV: The reality is that as far as traditional corporate radio, the focus is not on music and in our little world smooth jazz is morphing into smooth A/C and phasing out instrumentals for easy listening vocals.
CR: One of the things we have really done over the last few years is cultivated Internet radio as much as we can so Nick's music does get heard by as many people as possible. When I find out that someone on an Internet radio station is playing Nick, I email them, I make sure that they get a copy of the new CD when it comes out.

SV: Can I stand up and cheer. Internet radio is so important but it is such a different world, and works so differently from anything we've had before. You were one of the first people to embrace new media even when it is so much work to deal with a thousand little guys instead of three or four big power brokers.
CR: I'm a "little guy" too, and music is personal. Yes, it's a business, yes it's how we make our living. But that's not the reason that we do it. We do it because it's personal. I love what I do and I love creating an environment for Nick to do what he loves to do. It makes him happy, it makes me happy, it makes the fans happy, It's pleasurable. It's fun and nobody said it was easy. I work harder at this than I have ever worked at anything in my life. It's rare that I take a day off, then I work twice as hard the next day. I take phone calls at any time. I answer e-mails at 3 a.m.  I am completely dedicated to this because I believe in it. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to know that I have relationships with people that other people don't even know.

SV: I kind of get this vibe from some artists that if  you are too interactive and connect with your fans at that level that they won't look up to you because you are not a "star" to them, and they won't respect you as much.
CR: That's completely false.

SV: Or that if they get too close to the fans the fans will become intrusive.
CR: That's up to you to control. You can be very personable and approachable but put out the message that says here is the line. People respect that. It's the same message that anybody puts out whether they are a public figure or not when it comes to their privacy. Because he is a public figure people will sometimes cross the line. They don't mean ill by it, they are just curious.

SV: Or charmed (laughs). And we have such a culture of public figures hanging out way too much of their personal lives that people don't sense it being inappropriate sometimes.
CR: And you can handle that graciously and just smile and veer away to less personal conversation. People respect that and Nick respects them. He understands where they are coming from and that they aren't meaning to be intrusive.

SV: I think having a good team of caring people who are fan-friendly, media friendly, and resourceful gives the artist a connection with the fan base that makes the fans feel like they are cared for and respected. That gives the artist the space to have a personal life, which is necessary for them to have a creative life.
CR: That's true. Being accessible to the fans makes them respect you more, not less. It's been our experience that it makes them appreciative of the fact that they can spend a minute talking to Nick, that they aren't dismissed or seen as just somebody to buy a ticket and a CD. As a result we have very few issues. These are mature people we are talking about. They are adults, they respect personal boundaries and they don't take advantage of him. It's good for them and it's good for Nick. He stays connected with the people he's making the music for and that is part of the lifeblood that he needs as an artist. We hear all the time from the fans that that is one thing that makes him really special

SV: Even his fan club is like that. It's not one of those corporate fan club setups that takes your money and sends you a picture and a few newsletters, it is about connecting.
CR: He has a very passionate fan club and fan club president. There is contact with Nick, too. One of the things he does is that the first year you are in the fan club you get a CD and some goodies, signed things and such, the second year you get more goodies, then the third year you get a personal message recorded by Nick. He does it in the studio directly for you, it's not some generic pre-recorded thing. These people mean a lot to him, it's not just numbers.

SV: You tend to all the elements. Your fan club is active and treats the fans like they matter, Nick's website represents him visually, it's up to date, and it's easy to navigate. You send out two newsletters, one for fans and one for kids,  that are informative and visually appealing. You do the social networking sites and online interview shows. How do you manage all those levels and keep the quality so high.
CR: It's all part of the vision. It was very clear from the beginning that we needed to differentiate ourselves. To do that Nick had to have a distinctive style musically and personally. His “sartorial splendor” was all part of the plan. He felt he needed to look good because the artists in the Pop and R&B world when he was growing up had a lot of style. To him it's a sign of respect to dress well for his fans, and he likes to dress well. He has a real sense of style.  We have a wonderful endorsement with Stacy Adams so now he gets clothes and shoes from them but that's because he already had the image. He started wearing hats to keep the sun out of his eyes when he was playing. He liked them and started wearing more of them and now he's so known for the hats that he can't perform without them. It's become his signature. We did the same thing with the website. His website is very reflective of who he is as a person. It's bold, dynamic, colorful and stylish. When we decided to upgrade his website I started looking at everybody's' websites to see which ones looked good and worked. I went into Yahoo and went down their lists of artists, which took countless hours, but I found a site that I really liked. It was very graphic and clean. I looked at some of the other sites that designer had done and liked them so I called her and discussed vision and she got it. She created a beautiful website. I feel like it's my job to get involved. I don't say “here's some money go develop a website,” or “go start a fan club.” I get involved and I've become friends with people because of this involvement. I'll make contact with a website or an Internet radio station or a magazine and find some really swell people there that just connect. But I never presume that because someone is a friend they will do something that isn't right for them. I don't put someone on my guest list expecting them to write a glowing review or send them a CD expecting immediate power rotation. I do it because they are good people I care about.

SV: See, that is so 21st century! To be willing to check out all those sites till you find a designer who vibes with your vision, to cultivate all these indie media people. Lining up a bunch of smalls to make a big.
CR: I guess it comes from the ground up and we are not at all bothered by the changes at radio, the changes in the market, or the changes in the economy when it comes to Nick's career because we have always taken an organic approach to it. I've always believed that the fans create the market and not the other way around. Because of that we've tried to stay in touch with fans, stay personal with them. We are not aloof people. When I road manage a gig I get to know everyone involved from the stage manager to the people selling merchandise. I learn their names, we create a mini-team. That's our support and if we respect them they will respect us. We do that everywhere we go.

SV: Having those relationships and cultivating these resources can help you stay top of mind and stand out in a crowded scene but the bottom line is the artist has to have the goods. Which Nick does. But being a media person I noticed that you never hyped or put a hard sell on him. I was not prepared for how amazing he is live. I had heard from friends and thought they were a little less picky or more easily charmed than me. And I liked some of the songs on his CDs but I was not prepared to be as blown away as I was when I saw him at our beach series. It's like he's building this secret momentum by winning more people over at every performance.
CR: Part of what we have always tried to do is let Nick's music spontaneously speak to the people that it is going to speak to. We never set out to generate hype, we never even set out to establish him as a smooth jazz artist. That was the first radio format that embraced him so he is considered a smooth jazz artist but he goes way beyond that. Seeing Nick live is nothing like the CD. You couldn't make a CD that represents Nick live. I think we did a fairly decent job on the last project of giving an idea of what he is like live as far as the variety of things he can do but you can never do a CD that would be completely like Nick live.

SV: Nick is an established artist now. It would be easy to just sit back and let it ride or let his career develop from this foundation without much further prodding but you seem to be just getting started.
CR: I'm always thinking and working. It takes time, effort, energy, and thought. I think about ways to get Nick's name out there. One of my goals right now is to broaden his audience recognition. That's part of the plan and one of the reasons we signed with Koch. I want Nick to be a cross boundary artist. Smooth Jazz has been very good to him but he covers a lot more territory than that. We want to continue to reach out and reach more and more people. Music changes. It's a living, breathing thing. Musical tastes change. When you are an artist whose own music grows, it's not a question of matching what’s out there. It's a question of continually growing.

SV: And setting yourself up to be found. People are more open to exploring all kinds of music than ever. If they find a cool song they don't care what genre it came from. They like it and they put it on their iPod with their crazy colorful mix of songs.
CR: I've seen it with kids, teenagers. I've seen them at outdoor gigs totally enthralled with what Nick was doing. It's his dynamism, his style, how he can throw in a rock lick or a blues lick. Format doesn't matter. They want to hear something that excites them and when they do they will want more. It all goes back to what are you doing as a manager to create opportunities for your artist to do these things and get that kind of exposure.

SV: One more question that kind of gets to the essence of heading into more twists and turns and layers of change. Two years from now, say everything is almost clean slated. Radio as we have known it is no longer a vehicle for exposing new music, there is no brick and mortar retail beyond a few pop chart toppers, the economy and human nature have shifted the concert scene to smaller more intimate gigs and multi genre festivals and the Internet is accessible everywhere and people use the Internet to find music and turn each other on to it. How do you keep your artist viable and visible in an environment like that.
CR: First of all you have to be aware of what’s going on. Where are people are getting their music. They are not getting it from record stores. We encourage people to go to the website, or Amazon. We've got him up on iTunes. He has one of the most downloaded smooth jazz songs for the year. Make use of the technology, be aware of what it is. Don't make excuses, like saying that illegal downloads are killing an artist. Our audience doesn't do that. Our audience pays for music. They may not be as technologically advanced as younger people because they didn't grow up with it at their fingertips but the younger people are coming in behind. Younger people find music. Everything is grassroots now and you have to stay in touch with that. I don't see any decline in Nick's career even though Smooth Jazz radio is half what it was in terms of listeners. When "High Flyin'" was out it was getting 1200 spins a week when it peaked. Now the top tune gets 350 if it's doing well. Nick has grown and exploded during that time. It's already happening. It's not two years down the road. It's now. If you're not on top of it now, then two years down the road it will have passed you by. You have to be aware of how people are finding new music and how to find people. I find websites to be invaluable. There are a lot of really well done websites that I stay in touch with on a regular basis. There are some that are less well known but cater to the kind of music Nick makes. I try to find them and try to make sure Nick is on them. The label is a part of this. You have to have a label that gets it, that gets that music is changing and makes the effort. There are some people in the industry who think the whole thing has gotten out of hand and they don't know how to combat that. My feeling is that if you can't get a handle of it then find somebody who can. Look at the people who are leading the way, find out where the results are coming from. To me Internet radio is a huge thing. We support it the same way we support terrestrial radio. Nick's CD was sent to Internet radio stations all over the world. The ones that didn't contact me, I found. I'm still finding them. I go on search engines and look for them. Not just the big ones and the corporate ones, but the ones that people are doing on sites like Live365.com. If even one person buys a CD or comes to a concert because they found Nick on one of those stations then they are on their way to becoming fans and the more exposure we get the more of those fans we can get. When they see him live they become fans and they make an effort to see him again.

SV: And they bring friends.
CR: and that's one thing that isn't going to change if radio continues to change and there are no more record stores we are still reaching out to people where they are.

SV: And letting the music take it from there. People connect with the music that touches them and the artists who bring so much spirit into what they do. That is the essential thing that will not change and the people who do the behind the scenes work that enables artists to play and people to listen are such an important part of the picture. Thank you so much for sharing that perspective with us.