by Scott Turner

The Critics

Many times I've seen writers and artists become totally devasted by a critic's bad review and I've always wondered why one person can speak for a total audience. My reply has always been "Illigitimi Noncarborundum" - or - "Don't let the b-----ds (you know the word) grind you down". Case in point, I remember a review on a record where the critic said verbatim "The record is too long - it's a white guy trying to sound R&B-ish and I can't understand all the words"... The record in question (and I had the pleasure of playing on it) was "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" by the Righteous Bros. That critic had great ears. Too bad he didn't have any holes in 'em!!

Another critic once said "Who in this country is going to buy a record when you have no idea what the artist (or song) is saying?" The record was "Volare" by Dominico Modugno.

A friend once defined a critic as "a person who comes down from the mountain after the battle is over - to shoot the wounded".

One time, on a lark, I produced a somewhat cute novelty song titled "Harvey Harrington The IV (Houston's Honky-Tonkin' Roach). A disc jockey called me to say he just couldn't play a song about a roach while people were eating breakfast. My retort was, "How many times have you sat down to eat dinner on a TV tray while watching Mickey Mouse?" He played the record!

Hey, I understand that we, as producers can't be right all of the time, but at least we do our best to present the best music we can, given the talent we are assigned to produce and, hopefully, we or the company don't let blatantly bad records reach release status. Yet, at times, one person can vent his venom on the public and possibly destroy (or try to) alot of hard work that has been done. Granted, there are some records that get out there that are not up to par, but there must be a tactful way to rate it so as not to hurt the artists' and writers' feelings, rather than raking them over the coals.

I don't know of any one of my peers who has ever stated "I'm going in the studio today to produce a really bad record", but sometimes they just don't come off the way they "heard it in their head" during preproduction. Still, at times, the higher-ups choose to go with it. If it hits, "THEY" did it. On the other hand, if it bombs, the blame is cast on the writer, artist and producer, but that's the way it goes.

Case in point - I was walking to the studio with one of my artists in the 70's with a session all ready to go when we ran up on a writer/friend who said "Would you take this tape and give this new song I co-wrote a listen?" Naturally, I said, "You bet". And when we got to the studio, I said to the artist, "We better listen to this as the writer (Wayne Carson) is a great songwriter with many #1 hits to his credit a la "The Letter" by the Boxtops and a ton of others. We played it. The artist Ray Sanders loved it. So we cut it. The song? Well, it was "You were always on my mind". The label gurus said "That's not a hit song" so it never came out. Well, it really did 11 years later by Willie Nelson!! That was another form of being criticized. So my advice to all writers and artists is if you believe in a song and its presentation, cut it. And let it fly and perhaps a critic will pan it. But don't let that bother you as it might just be another "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling".

In closing, I would have made a terrible critic because I've lived by this motto - "If you can't say something good about someone, don't say nothin' at all". I don't like hurting people's feelings. That's it!!