Description
Promoting your music without losing your musical integrity
by Peter Campbell
TN173 Oct 25
Funny how sometimes musicians just seem to appear out of nowhere.
Suddenly there is an awareness of new a new face, new music, a new approach and style.
The truth is that, for the most part, that sudden emergence is only possible because years of effort have been put in up front.
Experience and talent are a given, but it can take decades of writing, performing, recording and touring, building relationships, networks and trust to develop a unique musical identity that ‘suddenly’ catches the light and flashes into the consciousness of a mass audience.
At this point in history the musical landscape is vastly different to what it was when I first started performing around the folk clubs of Sydney.
It was 1969, I was 19, and the folk coffee shop scene was a vibrant social meeting place where meaningful music was the focus.
You were lucky to get amplification let alone any marketing beyond an A frame at the front door and perhaps a small ad in the local paper.
Today we are subservient to social media and an algorithm driven marketplace that demands feeding before it will show any interest whatever.
Taking on the whole marketing / distribution thing without help is not for the faint-hearted.
As many of you know, I have just released my new album, Burden of Hope, so this dilemma is very current for me.
The reality is that I haven’t even poked a stick at the algorithm in any serious way (that’s next), but since the last edition of Trad&Now I have had some much more grass roots success in America and I’ve been asked to outline how that happened for you all.
In July this year, Burden of Hope was released to the Folk Alliance International’s Folk Radio network across the USA.
There are over 200 radio stations and DJs who focus on the broad folk genre.
Within three weeks, the album, the title track and me as the artist, were charting: TOP ALBUMS OF THE MONTH – #20 Burden of Hope; TOP SONGS OF THE MONTH – #16 Burden of Hope; TOP ARTISTS OF THE MONTH – #28 Peter Campbell.
One has to accept that it’s probably just a flash in that enormous pan, but suddenly the name Peter Campbell was on the lips of presenters in America, the music was being heard and its messages reaching the ears of vast audiences at a crucial moment in history.
For that I am deeply grateful.
So how did it happen?
With deep musical roots, decades as a folk artist and four albums behind me, I had some real experience as a starting point.
Having spent about 40 years as a high end graphic designer and photographer, I understood the importance and principles of creating an identity with cut-through.
Conceptually, the look and feel of the album was set early on and drove the way we approached it.
There is no doubt that these helped keep costs to a minimum.
Co-produced and engineered by old friend and Australian music legend Brendan Gallagher, it was recorded economically over a couple of weeks in our living room in the Southern Highlands.
A couple of sessions in Sydney brought in wonderful featured artists George Washingmachine, Andy Bickers, Jo Caseley, Bow Campbell and other musical friends for background vocals.
In 2024, my old friend Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary fame) invited me to participate on a CD of artists who recorded in his renowned HenHouse Studio in Blue Hill, Maine USA.
We had three tracks each from Noel, John Stuart, Kevin Roth and me.
This introduced me to Hudson Harding Music, a distribution company specialising in promoting folk to the FAI Folk Radio network across the USA and Canada, with a few stations here and elsewhere in the world.
The CD went well and my music was aired in the US for the first time in about 45 years.
With Burden of Hope on the horizon, I approached Hudson Harding about undertaking its promotion.
They were keen to help.
It is a business, and this kind of personal promotion is a lot of work, so there were costs involved, along with the provision of about 150 CDs to give physical substance to the music.
The rest was up to them, and it worked.
It is gratifying to know that my songs were heard in the same company as Bruce Springsteen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Molly Tuttle, Leonard Cohen, Emmylou Harris, Tom Paxton and other greats.
If you would like more information please feel free to make contact through my website – petercampbell.au.
I will also be running a workshop entitled ‘Promoting your music without losing your musical integrity’ at the Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival (17-19 October).
It is about how to reconcile holding firm to honest human values with the need to promote our music in a highly competitive, social media driven market.
Come and say hello.
