DENISE MARSA

Letter to fans, supporters & family! 6/3/22

New music video

In my long career in the music business, I have only been physically involved in 3 “official” music videos for a single. The first one was for “Lucky Stars,” the duet I sang with Dean Friedman. We went to the CBS / Columbia Studios in New York to record the “live” video. I sat on a stool and Dean sat on a piano bench and played the song. We lip-synced. I enjoyed it, the link to watch the video is here.

The second was for my debut single “The Land Had a Dream,” from my debut solo album “SELF.” We went into my uncle’s movie studio in Los Angeles, he was a successful filmmaker and lent me his studio for a day. We spent a full day making the video. It was great fun and everyone worked very hard on the project. Editing was so much work! The link is here.

The third is about to be released, my new video for the track “FLOAT.” The video is an animated adventure that came to me, as I was mixing the first demo of the song. I worked with a wonderfully talented video graphics designer Karolina Tyszkowska and it was so much fun to work on. I am very proud of this video. I will share the link when we go live.

Mom, New Song & Millions of Dollars

Yesterday I had a chat with my “publisher” (my contact) at BMG. They as of this day administer my Marsa Music catalog. We spoke about the CBS Sunday Morning News piece a few weeks ago about Primary Wave the trends in music publishing and she gave me some insider insight about the president of that company. She also asked me what I thought of the piece. I told her what I told her several times before, as these huge wars for older artists’ catalogs and bodies of work become the obsession of these music publishers that are now being funding in part by hedge funds. I cannot imagine how they will ever get their ROI.

How will they make their money back, especially on the older artists, (ha) that may only tour for a few more years yet alone keep up their artistry, writing new songs as important or popular as their earlier ones? Or maybe that does not matter? We hear about artists making no money on streaming royalties and consumers (music lovers) not buying music any longer due to streaming, though the recent rise on mechanical royalties has just gone up from 9 cents to a bit over 12 cents.

Another question is, what does it say to new artists reading about all these deals, it’s like the music business isn’t tough enough with gold rings beyond most people’s reach, now new artists hear about a classic catalog being sold for 500 million dollars. Talk about the competition. Just so one big company can say to another big company, he stays or comes with us. They negotiate numbers that are hard to believe. It seems to me to be the quintessential definition of CORPORATION EGO. That’s the long and short of it for me. Unless I am missing something?

I have never been a big fan of the music business, (love making music) with its sexism and ageism blatantly displayed for decades. And the money that was once spent on production budgets, especially back in the 80s. These years very wealthy people are investing in catalogs and even artists through music publishers. I saw today, again on CBS Sunday Morning News, that a very wealthy man gave Bob Dylan millions for his archives, his memorabilia, his lyrics typed out and coffee-stained, and they have built him a museum where he lives, in Tulsa, so they can bring in tourism. Not where he was born, where he lives now. Dylan must be tripping about what one might call, his eternal fame. He started off with his acoustic guitar in the West Village, not wanting to be put in a box, singing from his heart & soul about what was going on in this world. Will there be a new era of young artists spreading their thoughts through songs, or is there no money left for labels to promote them to express themselves about today’s wars and injustices?

What would Beethoven or Chopin say, (whose compositions are now public domain and who were the popular musicians of their times) about all this money for music? And what about the public domain? How many years until you won’t have to get permission or pay an estate for a Springsteen song? Well, the key is buying up all the Master recordings of these artists, that is where I imagine they believe the golden dragon lies.

Today I am working on a new song, in honor of my mom. I woke up thinking about an idea to write a song inspired by her as it is Mother’s Day 2022. “Don’t Count Yourself Out Yet.” Ahhh, show biz!

This Heart London 1987

If Gentleman Jack Could Sing

Cheers to all women who follow the beat of their own drum. Especially when it was not so easy. Like back in 1832. Now 190 years later, we celebrate 2022 March Women’s History Month and salute the women who moved mountains. For themselves and for all women.

I recently watched Gentleman Jack on HBOMax and truly enjoyed it. Wow-what a colorful powerful life and what struggles. Congrats Sally Wainwright!

I started thinking what if all these earth-shattering, unique, and one-of-a-kind historical women like Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, & Marie Curie could sing, what contemporary artist might we connect them with? Well here’s my first go…Annie Lennox singing COLD for dear Anne Liste r, played so brilliantly by Suranne Jones. Extra bonus track from Linda Ronstadt. (The Stone Poneys) because this line says it all…then, now & always.

“All I’m saying’s I’m not ready for any person
Place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me, so…”

Musicians Make Great Leaders

Let me quantify this title above. Musicians have empathy and compassion. They feel, they put mind, body, hands, skills to task, and more often than not, they learn to play music composed by others, so they carry out an intention. Perhaps from another time. Or from Yesterday. A classical musician might learn & play a Bach piece or Beethoven, a bluegrass guitarist might learn and play a Bill Monroe piece, or a pop singer might learn and play a Laura Nyro composition and a jazz musician might learn & play a Duke Ellington piece. All these musicians understood leadership. They left their legacy. Others step in their footsteps. They will decide and determine as they walk or run or skip their paths and find their way, whether the music will be able to provide and sustain a living, the income they desire, the emotional support they need, or whether the music becomes a hobby or they drop it completely. I have known musicians to do all 3. When they decide to move to another field, another way to embrace life and sustain a living, they enter the field with a passion and a drive that creates competition within themselves to succeed “here” if not “there.” They come into the workplace with the same empathy and compassion they had when they played the guitar, the piano, the sax, the banjo, the voice. And these people, these wide-minded, charismatically expressive individuals, make great leaders. I see on LinkedIn many musicians have moved to other industries and they are CFOs, CEOs, heads of marketing, company owners, tech masters, and this is perhaps why and how I quantify my title, my thoughts today. I wish a few world leaders, right about now, had the empathy and compassion needed to be truly great leaders. Destruction, chaos, threats, diminishing & dismissing others, can only lead to tyranny. What would a composition sound like, if it were titled, Tyranny? What musician would learn it & play it and continue to give it life? Not I.

2/22/2022

Lots of 2’s today!

4 those that follow this blog: new song new animated video coming soon…

What times these are! Having always enjoyed solo time, there are more and more moments now just becoming one long chunk of time. Days– weeks–months? Just time.

It’s been a creative time for me. How about you? I see now there are 72 followers for this blog! Wow, I’m most grateful. Thank you. Hope you enjoy my posts! Please let me hear from you, how are you, what are you working on?

Stay well and be happy. xo dm

Meatloaf

ROADIE & a yellow t-shirt

I was in Austin, Texas back in the early 80’s. My uncle was part of the production team for a movie called ROADIE starring Meatloaf and Debbie Harry. Alan Rudolph was directing. My uncle wanted me to see up close the making of a rock n roll movie and it only made me frustrated. So close…and that’s who I was, I wanted to be where I wasn’t, from day one.

During a break in the shoot, I was talking with Meatloaf and I told him about my work and I gave him a cassette to listen to and he went into his trailer and blasted it. Then came out after the first song, Too Proud to Love, and told me I was a really great songwriter and singer with my own sound and that I just had to keep on my track and one day one person would hear my work at a label and get me. He said you just need the one. He was very cool, he took the time to listen to my work and inspired me to move onward.

A year or so later, my friends were managing me, one was gaining momentum in the business, he had been the tour manager of the Lucky Stars tour in the UK and the other was my drummer. There was a call for an audition for a new singer to go on tour with Meatloaf and my managers were pushing me to audition. I did not want to. They said they/we needed to earn money and that it would be great for my career. I told them I wanted to focus on my own songwriting, and this would be a deterrent, I was upset and then decided to learn the material. Reputation for being difficult?

The day of the audition the one manager, the non-drummer, had a call after the audition was set up – from Meatloaf’s manager and he told my manager that Meatloaf saw my name on the list and remembered me and said he did not think I was the right type for the part. I later found out there was lots of groping, grabbing, sweating, sexual innuendos, and physical actions during the show, and I was relieved beyond words, that he had his manager call and stop the audition. It would have been most embarrassing and distasteful for me and I probably would have walked out. I knew it was a bad idea and yet I was willing to back then and I emphasize back then to consider and even go through with an audition that I knew in my heart was not a good thing for me. You have to follow your gut even when you are young with all kinds of people telling you to do this and you want to do that! I never thanked Meatloaf.

I made the cut in the film, you can see me on stage playing a roadie in a few shots during concert scenes. I was also Debbie Harry’s stand-in a few times. I wish I still had that Roadie yellow t-shirt.

Sidney Poitier Passing

ASU names film school after trailblazing actor and filmmaker Sidney Poitier | ASU News

There have been so many deaths recently in Hollywood, this one makes me very sad. I remember him as a young girl having such an elegant presence. He was on screen with Rod Steiger in the film In the Heat of the Night. We were living in Tucson and in our last home before moving back to the east coast, there was a drive-in we could ride our bikes to, and we’d watch without sound. He made such an impression on me. Later on and even as recently as last year I watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and his words speaking to his father, were so powerful. “You see yourself as a black man, I see myself as a man.” One sentence, covering the essence of a person’s beliefs. It was such a poignant moment in the film and proof, we can all create our own definitions of ourselves. At all times. RIP Mr. Poitier. Thank you for your stellar body of work.