Branson , "The Live Entertainment Capital of the World' ...isn't - Lee Hill Kavanaugh for Kansas City Star

Branson, 'The Live Entertainment Capital of the World' … isn't By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH The Kansas City Star JILL TOYOSHIBA | The Kansas City Star Bill Caldwell is leaving Branson after more than a decade playing in live bands at the shows for which the area is known. Fewer musicians can make a living there, compared to years ago when Caldwell first arrived. BRANSON | After 14 years playing in Branson's theaters, musician Bill Caldwell has had enough. He's leaving. And he's not shy to tell why. "Branson, 'The Live Entertainment Capital of the World,' … isn't," said Caldwell, 45, as he sat with a group of fellow musicians in a coffee shop. Branson was built on the backs of the musicians who made its shows come alive, Caldwell said. But now he and some other musicians here say they are being cast aside as an extravagant luxury. Replaced by recorded tracks. As the economy has soured and gas prices have soared, more and more shows here are relying on recorded tracks instead of hiring musicians to perform each night. Some shows use no tracks at all. Some add a few tracks to create a big-band sound. Others hire a rhythm section — piano, bass, drums — and use tracks for the horns, auxiliary instruments and even singers themselves. Some are all tracks, without any live music. And it isn't happening only in Branson. Use of recorded tracks is a growing trend in Las Vegas, New York and London, as well as on many cruise ships, said Billy Linneman, the secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Musicians' Local 257 in Nashville, Tenn. The union has been fighting tracks for years. "Audiences have been 'dumbed down' musically," Linneman said. "They think they're getting a lot. The quality is high-tech, but the feel is much, much worse," lacking the spontaneity of a live performance. Comedian/ventriloquist Jim Barber, co-owner of the Hamner Barber Theater in Branson, says he loves live music. But he can't afford it in his show, so he uses tracks. "It saves money," Barber said. "… Your employees have no idea how much it costs to run a theater, nor should they. But electricity, paper, advertising, even popcorn oil, has gone sky high. "Owners aren't being mean or greedy. It's all based on how you keep the theater open. If the show is successful enough, they'll be able to afford live musicians." There are no official statistics on how many musicians are working each night, each season or in each show. The musicians know who is working and who is not by word of mouth. Lately, it's the wind players — the trumpets, saxophones, trombones — who have been hit hardest. Just a few years ago, Caldwell said, he knew 33 other saxophonists who worked three times a day, six days a week. "Now there are only two who are full-time," he said. Still, whether the music is live or recorded, the audience sees and hears a show with musicians and singers. They see singers holding microphones and some musicians playing. They might hear more: Herds of saxophones, quartets of trombones, screaming trumpets, and maybe a steel guitar line, violins, even a tympani. "Smoke and mirrors," one musician said. "People are wowed just as much with a big light show." Kansas City jazz musician Mike Metheny took his parents to Branson a few years ago. The shows they saw were more than just music, with dancers, lighting, scenery and sound. He and his family had a good time watching it all. "You could never get away with replacing live musicians at places like the Blue Room or Jardine's (in Kansas City), or any of the other live venues I play at," Metheny said. But in Branson, he said, "it's the total entertainment experience." Vicky Smolik, the president of the Theater Musicians Association, said audiences can tell the difference. Smolik, based in St. Louis, has seen more and more Broadway-based traveling shows use computer-enhanced canned music for their touring shows. "Our position in is that live music is what the public is paying to hear," she said. "We believe they deserve to get what they're paying for. The public can tell the difference once it's pointed out. And no matter how much cost saving the producers say that a virtual orchestra brings in, the public isn't seeing a drop in their ticket prices." The association is working with other national organizations and soon will introduce a public relations campaign supporting live music, Smolik said. "We can't stop technology, but we can sure make audiences aware of it," she said. • • • Singer/guitarist Glen Campbell has performed often in Branson over the years. He doesn't use tracks. "I have never played with tracks in a concert," Campbell said from his home in Los Angeles. "I wouldn't want to. It wouldn't sound as good." If tracks had been in use when he was coming up, he wouldn't have had the musical experience he gained as a sideman working with some of music's greatest, he said. "I learned so much from Nat King Cole. And working with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, it was an education. … All those guys did it live. … "(With tracks) the music sounds gimmicky. It doesn't have a lot of life." Campbell's musical director, T.J. Kuenster, lives and works in Branson. He sees tracks as "a delicate, complicated issue." Shows use tracks in part because audiences expect perfection, he said. "Theater is a place of magic, and you should suspend belief to be entertained. … I look at tracks as an enhancement." But it's also about costs. "You have no idea all the people they have to pay to run the place," he said. "… Some of these shows are holding on for dear life. … High gas prices mean fewer butts in the seats." Kuenster, a pianist and conductor, is practicing for a show for which all the horn parts have been rewritten for piano. The horn players recently were laid off en masse. "Even the biggest names here are hurting," he said. "… If you're losing money, you can say, kill the show, or do a show and save money with tracks. "… Tracks can help. This is capitalism in action." For many contemporary and high-gloss pop/rock/country performances, tracks are the only way to re-create the studio sound that people hear on their iPods, said Mark Owen, musical director at the Legends, a show that features impersonators of well-known performers. "The days of the bucktooth, knee-slapping, hillbilly style are dying off, and being replaced with the new, the hip, the slick, the cool," Owen said. "You either adapt or leave." But one venue hasn't changed its business operations in 42 years and says it doesn't plan to. Steve Presley of Presley's Country Jubilee says he won't use recorded tracks. "We feel that's not what the public pays to see," he said. Presley's theater does make in-house tracks for use in an emergency, he said, but "we believe in the pure talent on stage." He acknowledges his theater would save money by using tracks. And there have been nights when somebody messed up. Four generations of musicians in the Presley family perform live, without a net, he said. But it's real, and he likes that edge. Presley, whose wife is the mayor of Branson, said he doesn't fault theaters that do use tracks. "I won't say it hurts the music industry in Branson," he said, "but I also think we can't hang our heads on the 'live entertainment' slogan anymore. "Because it's not true." • • • The six sidemen who gathered at the coffee shop with Caldwell would talk about their situation only if their names were not used. Unlike Caldwell, they still hope to get gigs here. "I'd never work again if they knew I said something negative," one said with a shrug. They complain they don't get paid for "doubling" — playing a second or even a third instrument. They receive no extra pay for extra rehearsals, or even an extra performance. They receive no pay at all if a star cancels a show. They say they still make the same $60 to $90 per show as they did 15 years ago. They say they don't receive royalties for playing on show CDs or DVDs that theaters sell in their lobbies as souvenirs, or for shows that are sometimes on television. They say theaters offer little or no health insurance or pensions. And they can't turn to their union for help, because they don't have a union. Three times, the American Federation of Musicians has tried to organize Branson's players. All three efforts failed. The most recent was five years ago, said Linneman of Nashville's Local 257. "When people are making money, they don't see the need," he said. "They told us, 'We don't need you.' " Caldwell told about seeing a show with his wife after a theater let him go. He was jolted when he heard himself playing over the speakers. Then he realized a recording he'd made for a compact disc was being used for the show itself — on tracks. He was out, but his recording was in. "I did it to myself," he said with disgust. "Musicians have screwed themselves." One brass player, who will start playing a new show in weeks, knows going into it that he'll be playing along with tracks. He will be the only live brass player in a brass section that would normally have at least four players. There will be no creative moments. "You go in, play the notes that fit, then leave," he said. Still, these musicians say they have stayed in Branson because they have families, mortgages, car payments … roots. The bottom line is that playing professionally is something these middle-aged musicians have worked and studied for years. "We stay because of the music. … And it's all we know how to do," a musician said. • • • One recent evening, when Caldwell normally would have been preparing for a show, he went instead to a hilltop in Branson to show visitors a bird's-eye perspective. The entertainment mecca sprawled below like a miniature Monopoly game. Neon billboards. Glittering ads. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Almost show time. Caldwell said he would leave as soon as he could sell his house. And then, maybe from nostalgia, maybe from a dark sense of humor, Caldwell began playing "Auld Lang Syne" on his clarinet. He was showing off, running the melody through several keys, then improvising over three octaves. Streams of sixteenth-notes leaped from his fingers. He played faster and wilder — until a cloud blotted the sun, putting a pall over the scene. "That's OK," he joked. "I've got a dark cloud over me anyway." Virtual music: High notes and low No one comes in early, or plays a wrong note, or plays too fast or too slow. Dancers can go on "auto pilot" without worrying about human glitches. With recorded tracks, the music is technically perfect. And soulless, some musicians say. Karaoke-like play-along programs have been around since the 1980s. But newer generations of "virtual orchestra" technology — and advancements in synthesizers, sequencers, digital recordings and samplers — have improved the ease and cost of providing a seamless performance for audiences. Tracks can boost the sound, make it bigger. Audiences don't realize that there may be 28 recording tracks or more, playing at the same time, to "sweeten" the mix, a term used by recording engineers, and one that musicians abhor. Tracks can be made for everything from drumbeats to horn solos to earthquake sounds, and then be played back all at once by a computer. Parts can be turned on or off, slowed down or speeded up, based on the needs of the moment in a live performance. A single note can be punched into a singer's track if that singer has difficulty reaching just one note. In 2003, it was a computer music proposal that caused Broadway musicians to strike. Producers wanted to shrink pit orchestras to allow for more audience seating. Musicians' ultimate fear? Some worry that one day acoustic playing will be a lost art form. -- http://www.bransonedge.com http://www.bransonmissouri.blogspot.com