"Promotion Man"  Chapter 5

 

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2004 King Mojo Records: The start-up

Fast-forward to 2002... Dick was enjoying life in the slow lane on Tybee Island, writing songs for Cotton States Music Publishing and had marketed ocean front and college communities with partner Arthur Schultz, President of Benchmark/Atlantic Property Development . Dick and Arthur became partners to develop Arthur's original idea of college student communities and together they opened offices in seven university towns in the Southeast and Midwest to market the new concept.

College student communities were an instant hit with investors and parents of students due to available tax strategies of the time. With a staff of thirty salespeople Art and Dick sold their college communities of 500 student condos and produced sixty-five million dollars in sales. The process of planning, getting bank financing, acquiring city, state and university approvals, then sales and construction had taken over two years, it had been both exhilarating and exhausting, so back at the beach Dick decided to try retirement again.

On a personal aside; the success of Benchmark/Atlantic's student communities proved to Dick that his sales and marketing skills applied equally well to other businesses and Dick was gratified to know that he wasn't just a one-trick-pony.

Family interests obliged Dick to return to his home town of Atlanta in 2004 and after a few months there doing odds and ends, he was restless and found that not having a full time project in the works was boring. Dick had always been hooked on some kind of development process, either promoting new music or new ideas, "it's what gets me out of bed in the mornings" ... so his search for a new project began in earnest.

Dick, with an open mind and always an interest in music, saw an opportunity developing when a new generation of music fans sold out several summer fusion-blues festivals that year. An idea began to form around serving the music niche that attracted thousands of young fans, but who's music was not being played by corporate radio!

The failure of radio to address a developing niche market was a stark reminder of the FM-AM takeover in the 1970's, a lesson that was not lost on Dick. Experience tells you when to look beyond what is the flavor of the week and when it's time start something new. That time is usually when entrenched corporations pick the low hanging fruit for an easy dollar today and take their eyes off the long term.

Dick's hobby was developing websites and he'd built dozens of them beginning in the early 1990's. He told friends in the music business about the advancements in online music delivery and advised them to adopt the technology in their business model. In the 90's the major record companies had a golden opportunity to incorporate the new technology and if they'd have taken advantage of the idea maybe they could have retained their distribution dominance in music.

But, at the crossroads of music and technology, record companies arrogantly believed it was a preposterous idea that someone working out of a dorm room would ever be in the position to challenge their power in the music industry... soon an idea who's time had come, by the name of Napster, proved them so very wrong!  Now the corporate music business is becoming more irrelevant by each passing day and is in financial free-fall, passed by an online world, much like when cars took over transporting families from the horse drawn carriage.

Today multi-national corporate record companies and land based radio stations slip into irrelevance, and as every day passes a new Internet application dismantles their business model piece by piece, they only echo past glory. If you need more evidence of their death rattle, listen to the mindless drivel they pass off as music today and play rentlessly on corporate media.

Music stagnation offers a new challenge, how to bring the best original talents and interested parties together to benefit people that love real music, blues based, rock and jam music that's been ignored by corporate radio. After talking it over with musician and internet savvy friends, the idea of opening an internet based Indy record label that specializes in contemporary Blues music began and King Mojo Records website was soon online.

Dick knew to be a successful provider of the music that he and so many others love, the label would have to be driven by original talent. Looking on the short list of original blues artists was his friend of thirty-years, guitar gunslinger and blues rock legend Dru Lombar. Dru was founder and leader of the great Southern Blues Rock band "Grinderswitch". Dick had worked with the band at Capricorn and Rabbit Records. Dru and Dick got together in Atlanta the next week for a meeting, Dru signed on with the new label and the King Mojo Record company start-up was official.

Several emerging blues-rock artists were identified within the few months that followed and each was asked if they were ready to take a chance on helping develop the new online idea. After agreements were signed, the first King Mojo artists were showcased in 2004 on the first virtual release from King Mojo Records, the All Star series.

The new virtual release gained traction immediately on Internet radio and the first album sampler was free to download and on request hard copies were sent to radio. King Moho Records Allstars Vol. 1 got over 100,000 hits the first month and nearly 60,000 fan downloads.

The idea was simple and straightforward... offer great original blues and rock music by emerging artists, then use the website so fans and radio could sample or download the new artists music.

Our goal was "find the best new contemporary blues artists, roots rock or fusion and showcase them to the world."  We began promoting our artists on the first King Mojo series and now our business model has proven so successful that several King Mojo Records artists have made it onto the national charts.

King Mojo Allstars Vol. 1 - King Mojo Allstars Vol. 2 - King Mojo Allstars Vol. 3

~~~o~~~
King Mojo Records

Click here for free downloads.
Dick Wooley Associates
~~~o~~~
South Rock

Copyright @ 2004 ~ 2014

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