A new business venture in North Little Rock and Memphis seeks to change current norms in the recording industry.
Music mogul Al Bell grew up in Arkansas and later became chairman of Stax Records and president of Motown Records.
Bell says he is once again working with authentic artists who no longer fit into conventional categories
“The [music] industry started putting in place a mass merchandising model, which meant they deemphasized rare artists… it was like McDonald’s or Burger King … [mass production] making new artists copy the sounds and styles of other popular artists,” said Bell. “I felt I had to put something in place that allows us to continue to evolve as an industry.”
Bell says his new enterprise, the Artist Career Development and Entertainment Creation Company, is all about enhancing the careers of new artists and giving rare talent the tools and industry connections necessary to succeed.
Bell admits he is especially looking for artists who produce songs and sounds that don’t conform to generic styles within the music industry.
“The relationship that we have with these artists is a business relationship… it’s not royalty relationships or anything like that. We put them in business,” Bell said. “We grow the business together and the artists have something substantive so that ultimately it will become an annuity for them. When artists don’t feel like performing anymore, they’ve built and created assets that they own that continue to generate revenue for them.”
Bell says he wants to use his decades of expertise to open doors for rare performing artists, to help them build their music careers, and to create opportunities for those artists to sign other merchandising deals.
Click here for more information on Al Bell and his other business ventures.
