Below is a conversation between- The Funkee Caligula - Craig Bevan and Barry Zeger.
Craig has over 30 years of studio production work. Literally thousands of tracks have gone thru Craig's hands. These releases range from hip-hop... dance... house... drum n' bass... rock... electro... pop... r'n'b... etc... for the gamut of major and indie record companies. As a composer/instrumentalist/producer his compositions and playing can be heard in film/tv and records. From million sellers to the bottom dwellers, regardless always striving for the best.
Q: The Funkee Caligula
We have Barry Zeger in on the conversation for a bit (Co-Owner Bassment Records at the time).
Latin freestyle -Ya gotta fill me in. With Latin pop, reggaeton etc. being so popular, where does Latin freestyle - fit in with this explosion. I'm not too familiar with it. You and Barry Zeger delved into it a bit wth artist such as Joey Kid, Jose Chinga (AKA Jose Chenna) Diaz Brothers, right?
A: Barry Zeger
I'll start off, I guess. We had a meeting with La India about doing some solo records for Bassment Records- she was in TKA (Tommy Boy Records) at the time. She turned the offer down but she generously turned us onto Joey Kid, a friend of hers.
A: Craig Bevan
He was too young at time to sign without a lot of paper work and a judges consent so we recorded "Broken Promises" and waited till he was 18 to sign.
A: Barry Zeger
It wasn't a long wait.
Q: The Funkee Caligula
So why Latin freestyle?
A: Barry Zeger
Latin freestyle was gaining popularity in all the major markets with the youth, both spanish and anglo but the Major labels took no notice. They had no idea about it really. They pretty much hated it and the major Billboard reporting DJ's really disliked it.
A: Craig Bevan
Kinda like Hip Hop in the early days. The market was left open for the small labels.
A: Barry Zeger
The driving force behind it was the kids. Pure and simple.
A: Craig Bevan
To me, Latin freestyle was more or less part of the reason for the popularity of Latin pop, reggaeton that is today's number 1 genre worldwide. It was driven by the kids and all their different influences culturally that they had. It was no longer markets dominated by American and British acts.
Q: The Funkee Caligula
So back to Joey Kid. How did he end up on Atlantic Records?
A: Barry Zeger
We released "Broken Promises" which did really well with the late night Latin leaning mix shows in the US.
A: Craig Bevan
Let me just say, internationally all of the Latin Freestyle records were ignored. In the beginning the USA was the market - Canada and a little bit of Mexico.
A: Barry Zeger
Yeah, Europe did not take to it at all. After "Broken Promises" we released "Everything I Own". This record took some time to get going but it reached the top ten in all the big Latin leaning markets in the USA. Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Orlando all the major markets.
A: Craig Bevan
We were just three guys at Bassment Records myself, Barry and Terry Selders (promo Bassment) taking on the major labels in these major markets for the most coveted radio adds in the country. And we did pretty well.
A: Barry Zeger
Next up was "Counting The Days". We got a lot of momentum right out of the gate on this.
A: Craig Bevan
Yeah, Due to all the hard work on the "Everything I Own" single.
A: Barry Zeger
People took immediately to that one. Sales were good with a lot of real airplay in all the major markets. Top ten in most.
A: Craig Bevan
We had some major labels sniffing around when that had all the airplay. I finished the album we were working on and Bassment was ready to release it.
A: Barry Zeger
We had the album cover designed, pictures taken - pretty much all systems go - then Atlantic Records stepped in. Marc Nathan was the lead A&R on this.
A: Craig Bevan
Marc Nathan just recently passed away. Very sad. He was a great guy. He was always lookin' for creative ways to team up different artists and different styles for collaborations. He worked for a lot of different companies thru the years, always looking out foremost for the artist.
A: Barry Zeger
I don't remember how Marc connected with us, it might have been through one of our distribution connects. He rang us up and asked us all about Joey and what our thoughts were about bringing him to Atlantic.
A: Craig Bevan
Well, It could've been Craig Kallman (Atlantic Records VP) He often called me when he had his indie label Big Beat, to talk about the biz. He could've turned Marc on to the situation.
A: Barry Zeger
Yeah, that could have been the connect, but Marc was the one who made the call (other A&R credits for the LP- Toby Emmerich and Karen Gibson). I told him we were certainly interested in the opportunity, but I explained to him that there was nothing about Joey or his music that would be remotely impressive or attractive to the uber cool Billboard reporting DJ's - all of whom were obsessed with house and imports from Europe.
I told Marc that if major market radio play and U.S. single and album sales were of interest, Joey was the guy. But if his goal was to wow those Billboard spinners, then we couldn't help him.
A: Craig Bevan
Marc was a serious numbers guy, always checking airplay and sales numbers. He knew what was happening with the record.
A: Barry Zeger
Apparently, my presentation was convincing, in addition to the fact that "Counting The Days" was the top seller at all the distributors in the tri-state area. Marc was savvy enough to know the difference between image records, like the oh-so-cool house stuff, and commerce. And that ability led him to sign Joey. Sad situation in his passing so young. One of the good guys in the industry.
Impact Video Magazine- Free Streaming Video- Xumo
1989- Craig Bevan & Barry Zeger (Bassment Records) interview starts at approximately 51:00 minutes- before that is a short interview with Craig Kallman (Big Beat Records- Atlantic CEO) & a short live performace VID of Joey Kid. + lots more...
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