>> [MUSIC] Live performance is the most important aspect of developing a loyal,
ongoing relationship with your fans.
You can create a great YouTube video.
But going out on the road,
having a live performance really cements that relationship.
Justin Bieber had great YouTube videos and his manager,
Scooter Braun saw it and brought him down to
Atlanta as a result of just seeing the YouTube video.
But it took time for him to develop and training as well,
for him to develop an engaging live performance.
It takes time to develop an engaging live show.
Various artists use a number of ways to really create the kind
of environment that they can be assured that at the end of the show,
they're going to receive a standing ovation.
If you want to be a hit artist,
that is really what you're striving for, a standing ovation.
You don't want to receive [APPLAUSE] polite applause, as I call it.
Polite applause really doesn't get it.
A lot of artists use various means to
create the kind of environment to elicit that standing ovation,
some use great production.
They'll come out of the stage.
They'll be propelled out of the stage as Beyonce and her group,
Destiny's Child did at the Super Bowl one year.
They came out and were shot up in the air and the landed at the same time,
and of course, that [APPLAUSE] created
a standing ovation just for that portion of the show.
They might also involve and utilize choreography.
They might have dancers, many entertainers,
Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake,
even Kanye West has a great stage show,
great production that they know will engage the fans in a very,
very particular way, eliciting the standing ovations that they're looking for.
But you don't just have to have these bells and whistles in order to
elicit a standing ovation and get that great response that you want from your fans.
There are certain artists whose virtuosity of talent
alone is enough to create that kind of reaction.
You have Jazz Titans like McCoy Tyner,
and the great Wayne Shorter,
or vocalists like Adele who can just come out on the stage.
The power of her voice and her vocals alone are enough to really get the fans involved,
have them transfixed in the performance in the moment and create a dynamic live show.
Developing the art of live performance is
just as time-intensive as developing the art of recording.
There's two different arts.
The art of live performance,
the art of recording.
It takes a lot of time to develop both of these arts.
In his book outliers,
Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000
hours to really become an expert in anything that you want to do.
That's why I say you have to work it.
Performing live, you get the immediate response from the crowd.
Sometimes that can cause you to improvise in certain ways.
You're inspired by what the audience is
giving back to you in response to what you're doing.
Sometimes you can have a great live performing act.
Have you ever bought a record by an act that you saw and you
really liked them live and he listened to the record and you just said,
that really doesn't capture what I saw at that show?
Well, that's why I say it's two different arts and it takes time,
sometimes years to develop a great live stage show.
It also takes time to become a great recording artist.
When you're in the studio,
there's no one there, there's no response.
But you have to be in a position to try to give the same emotion that you would give in
a live setting in that closed studio environment, and it is an art.
It really does take time to develop that.
Many artists spend too much time recording
and not enough time in putting together their live show.
I spoke to a live show producer
a few months ago who indicated to me that he had
a client that brought him in to put together their show,
and the group told him,
"We've spent the last 18 months recording our album."
The live show producer said, "Well,
how much time do you usually spend in putting together your live show?"
They said, "Well, we're going to spend two or three days
practicing our live show to go on the road."
He said, "Well, wait a minute, this is very interesting,
how much money did you make from recording last year?"
The artist said, "Well, maybe $10,000."
He said, "How much money did you make from performing live?"
He said, "Well, maybe 80-$90,000," or in other words,
90 percent of their income was generated from
their live performance and only 10 percent from recording.
But yet they only put a couple of days of rehearsal
for the live show and 18 months recording.
It's kind of putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.
It's important to recognize that you have to invest the time to
come up with a fan engaging, dynamic live performance.
I used to go to rehearsal of my clients the O'Jays and
the O'Jays are not only great singers,
they are truly a song and dance team.
They are a song and dance team
that's part of their performance and obviously they are one of the greatest.
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
That combination works for them.
Walter Williams and Eddie Levert are some of the finest.
I call them vocal instrumentalists.
They're improvising throughout everything they do with
their vocals and it's amazing to see what they do vocally.
But in addition to that,
what their audience is really engaged and involved in is their choreography.
The syncopated steps, the synchronization of
the vocals and the dance is just mesmerizing.
I remember going to a concert many years ago and I was sitting
in the audience and as they did certain steps,
I heard people responding to the movement.
They just really loved it.
Well, what people don't know is that it takes
hours and hours and days and weeks for the O'Jays to put together their live performance.
Maybe a month or more,
and they would bring in a master choreographer whose name is Cholly Atkins,
Cholly, C-H-O-L-L-Y Atkins, A-T-K-I-N-S. Google him.
Cholly Atkins started with a dance duo in a dance duo called Cole and Atkins and
it was a tap dance group that performed in theaters
across the United States during the '40s and '50s.
But then they stopped booking tap dance acts at a lot of these venues in the early '50s.
Cholly decided that he was going to take the talent that he had as a show person,
a great dynamic dancer and entertainer,
and really transfer that knowledge to
this burgeoning area of music called vocal groups and with
doo-wop groups who basically just stood and
might've snap their fingers and step side to side as they were singing.
He got with a group called
The Cadillacs was the first group that he started
and he had big hit records on R&B records at that time.
He put together a dynamic choreographed show for them that set the R&B world on fire.
I bring this up because it was really
the start of what you're seeing in popular music today,
incorporating dance with many people on stage.
Most of those cases with Cholly Atkins in the '50s and '60s,
it was vocal groups of four or five people.
But today you will see Katy Perry,
you'll see Lady Gaga,
you'll see Usher with multiple dancers dancing in time.
Very intricate, syncopated choreography.
Cholly Atkins was the one that really started to do that.
Cholly Atkins also became the chief choreographer
at Motown Records and choreographed all of the Motown acts,
the Miracles, the Four tops, the Temptations.
He is the one that really started that element and he also was the choreographer for
the O'Jays for years and years until he died in the first decade of this new century.
A great, great choreographer.
I remember going to a hotel room in my hometown of
Cleveland where the O'Jays lived at that time and they brought Cholly in,
and Cholly held them in a hotel room,
and he was like a drill sergeant.
No, do it again.
[LAUGHTER] The O'Jays took their shirts off.
They were sweating and they were there for
four or five hours a day practicing their routines.
Now here's the hint to the story.
The O'Jays have been performing and still perform today.
They've been performing over 50 years,
and it's a result of them putting that time in,
creating that dynamic show that their audience knows every time they see them,
they're going to have that same level of showmanship,
the same type of
spontaneous emotion that's really going to elicit a great response from the audience.
The O'Jays are aware of that and so are the promoters of the live shows,
and that's why they can work so much even to this day.
You can have a long,
ongoing career if you put the time in.
Remember, you have to have it,
you have to work it.
If you have it and work it,
you can make it. [MUSIC]