by Mark E. Waterbury

Sometimes musicians can't help but get caught up in the professional side of the music industry. Some will end up getting so involved that the professional aspects they undertake become a passion almost as intense as the performing and recording sides of their lives. George Fletcher was indoctrinated into music early in his life. Growing up in Westchester County, New York, his father was a somewhat well-known singing cowboy named Tex Fletcher and all of his siblings were musicians as well. George opted for the guitar and played in numerous bands around the area, usually performing blues, R&B and funk. He had other jobs and one was driving a delivery truck for the local Gannet-owned newspaper. "Since all I had done was play music, I needed a day job and I knew someone who got me the job there," George recalls. "Through the years of floating in and out of working all the other aspects like production and layout, I eventually got into writing kind of accidentally." George was working for a guitar repair shop in Poughkeepsie, New York when he met the publisher for a magazine called Rock N' Read based in Albany. The publisher asked him to write a column about guitar repair for the mag. "I found that this was a very important offer because outside of writing songs, I'd never tried anything like this in print before. Technical writing...trying to intonate your Les Paul or how to properly string your guitar, you have to be very clear. And it used to take me sometimes days to write it just to get things right, but I go back to those columns today and realize that I did a good job at it."
George then moved on to writing for a magazine called Music Machine in the mid-Hudson Valley. He wrote a column, moved into advertising sales and eventually became the editor. George's wife Lisa was working with him on the magazine as he became more confident with his work in the world of music journalism. The publishers of Music Machine sold out to a larger company, and George and Lisa stayed on running the publication for them. They changed it and developed it for this group, virtually doing all of the work and making it into a moneymaking publication as Christmas 1993 approached. "They owed us quite a bit of money for what we did," George reflects. "They burned us for the money. Anyone who does a regional publication knows that they don't make that much money, and we didn't have a lot of dough. It trashed our Christmas; we were devastated and these guys didn't give a shit. They had more readers than ever before. It was run by younger folks who were hip and we did that ourselves. They burned us and we had no Christmas." Fairly depressed, George promised Lisa that this would never happen again. Upon leaving Music Machine, they decided to start their own magazine and on January 1, 1994, George and Lisa published their first issue of Rhythm and News. "We totally broadsided them. Everybody knew us from Music Machine. So we had tons of places to go for content and advertising clients. We had all the pieces together. They tried to keep up with us, but it was personal with us because of all the work we did to turn it around for them. Eighteen months later, those jerks were out of business!" George had a clearer idea that he was headed in the right direction with Rhythm and News after the mag was about a year old when he received a call from the executive editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal, Barry Rothfeld. Barry was also a musician who frequented the music store that George still worked at and was aware of the work George was doing with his magazine. He told George that the work of the Journal's music columnist was getting sort of stale and wanted to know if George would consider doing a couple of test columns for them. "That's when I realized that there was something to it. Because now mainstream media was reaching out to us and our little grassroots publication. Plus Rhythm and News has always made money; not a lot, but enough that I could go mainstream with it. We definitely saw potential."
Since its inception nearly nine years ago, Rhythm and News has grown from a local music magazine to a regional one that is respected in the industry for its wide coverage of various musical genres at local, regional and national levels. They founded a show on a local radio station called "On Stage" and publish on the web as well. "We found this balance that we are local because we are Poughkeepsie and lower valley people, and we still do about a fifteen county distribution area. We are regional because we are in several places up and down the Hudson Valley. That flavor and direction happened within about the first year or so, and it's been status quo ever since. We've been able to maintain a balance on the levels of bands that we cover and we have been fortunate in that respect."
Along with Rhythm and News, George continued to work for the Poughkeepsie Journal for eight years, and is now an editor at the Leader-Herald in Fulton County, New York where he and Lisa now live. He also continued to perform with various bands, even opening for Ray Charles with his band called The Handsome Men, but he quit the band about a year ago so he could support Lisa who is attending law school. George also does some publicity work for local musicians and is working on developing several web-sites involving music. After Lisa finishes law school, they may also consider developing other publications. But in spite of all the professional aspects of the music business that George enjoys being involved with, he still yearns for his days of creating and performing music. "I can see myself doing any number of professional things, but I would really like to get back to being a musician. If I miss anything from our old life in the Poughkeepsie area, it's the fact that I work so much and so many hours, and very little of it entails six strings and a box. I'm a third generation musician and it's the easiest subject in the world for me."
**********************************
George Fletcher's Advice for Musicians: Don't be concerned with being a rockstar or being famous. We're talking to the kids who are starting to get their act together. Be less concerned about what you are wearing or what's sticking out of your lips or tongue. Be more concerned with how good of a musician you can be. Being as good as possible is one of the most important things you can do. But we all know that there are successful musicians out there that do not possess the talent. They just happen to have the right package. But if you really have the talent first and you have your chops, then you should learn the business of the business. Learn how to communicate especially with the media. Make sure your CD is presented in a nice package with a nice photo and a folder and a nice cover letter - a nice presentation. Too many people go well into their adult years with a pie in the sky idea of the music industry. Just learn the music and then the business of the music. As you go along you will adjust.

www.rhythmandnews.com