Was AyM Latin a bad investment?
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Speaking from purely personal experience, I'd say that the marketing of the AyM division was poor. In the mid-80's, when all of these albums were being released, I hadn't a clue that they even existed. I got my first clue that Lani had done a Latin album by seeing her win the Grammy for Es Facil Amar. Not knowing anything about the AyM division, I assumed it was marketed only to Spanish speaking countries and even if I wanted to find it, I likely couldn't. It never occured to me to check out a 'World Music' section in a record store.
It wasn't until Herb's appearance on the Superbowl pre-show from Miami with Maria Conchita Alonso that I learned of his collaboration with her. THAT got me looking in the 'World Music' sections, where I found three cassettes of Maria's and three cassettes of Lani's Latin albums.
Granted, that Philadelphia is not exactly a hotbed of Spanish-speaking people. It's actually got a fairly small percentage compared to the total population - atypical for a larger urban area, but still, a TV commercial or two couldn't have hurt. Just because one doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't make one necessarily uninterested in Latin music. I don't speak Russian, but I like Tschaikovsky!
Harry
...with a personal view, online...
It wasn't until Herb's appearance on the Superbowl pre-show from Miami with Maria Conchita Alonso that I learned of his collaboration with her. THAT got me looking in the 'World Music' sections, where I found three cassettes of Maria's and three cassettes of Lani's Latin albums.
Granted, that Philadelphia is not exactly a hotbed of Spanish-speaking people. It's actually got a fairly small percentage compared to the total population - atypical for a larger urban area, but still, a TV commercial or two couldn't have hurt. Just because one doesn't speak Spanish, doesn't make one necessarily uninterested in Latin music. I don't speak Russian, but I like Tschaikovsky!
Harry
...with a personal view, online...
A&M's financial woes at the time were related to its decision to team up with Motown and distribute its own product in a joint venture called "Together Distribution." That meant leasing warehouse space and hiring people in several cities. Operating a record label is very expensive, and for all intents, AyM was the launch of another label just before Together began to implode.
...Had an interesting e-mail chat with a musician I enjoyed in college, named John Payne. His Payne/Levin Band album was one of the definitive college fusion albums for me...and in the course of doing searches to see if it was ever released on CD somewhere in the world, I found John Payne's current Web site and e-mail link.
He's playing weddings now. I asked him about the old album and told him how much I enjoyed it. His response: "if only there were 100,000 more people like you. I have no idea what happened to it. Maybe Mercury still owns it."
You get a sense how hard it is to make money off albums...and how easy it would be for an AyM label to fail when it wasn't a core product and the company got into cash flow trouble.
Put another way...look at the top labels of 1963. Dot, Roulette, etc. They seem to have shelf lives.
...Had an interesting e-mail chat with a musician I enjoyed in college, named John Payne. His Payne/Levin Band album was one of the definitive college fusion albums for me...and in the course of doing searches to see if it was ever released on CD somewhere in the world, I found John Payne's current Web site and e-mail link.
He's playing weddings now. I asked him about the old album and told him how much I enjoyed it. His response: "if only there were 100,000 more people like you. I have no idea what happened to it. Maybe Mercury still owns it."
You get a sense how hard it is to make money off albums...and how easy it would be for an AyM label to fail when it wasn't a core product and the company got into cash flow trouble.
Put another way...look at the top labels of 1963. Dot, Roulette, etc. They seem to have shelf lives.
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