Jim Olsen

The music industry may be a big business, but very small business can still succeed in it - on its own terms. Case-in-point: Signature Sounds Recordings, a small indie label embedded in rural Massachusetts, run by onetime Triple A WRSI/Springfield-Northampton PD and current weekend air personality Jim Olsen. He started Signature Sounds in 1994 with Mark Thayer, who owned a recording studio of the same name. Since then, they've mined the Triple A and American fields for distinctive talent, some of whom achieved national exposure and graduated to bigger labels. Yet Signature has continued to plug along, complemented by its own live music club and the production of a major area music festival. Here's how Olsen succeeds in the game he chooses to play.

What were you doing before you decided to start up signature sounds?

I started my career in radio. From 1984-'96, I was PD/MD at WRSI (The River)/ Springfield-Northampton, a commercial Triple A. At the time the station was based in Greenfield, MA, a couple towns over from Northampton. It was always commercial Triple A or progressive format. To this day I continue work at WRSI, hosting a Sunday morning Americana/roots show called the Back Porch. In the course of working at the station years ago, we developed a local music show called Homegrown. There has always been a wonderful music scene in the Pioneer Valley, which has produced bands such as the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., and a bevy of singer/songwriters. To promote the local music show, we made some compilation CDs in the early '90s based on themes. There was a holiday music album, a collection of songs about the region, and so on. In the course of putting those compilations together, I met Mark Thayer, who owned the Signature Sounds recording studio and together, we decided to start a label in 1994.

Was there a point in time when you realized that this could be a successful career/business?

It took a while to get off the ground. For the first half-dozen years, we were just a regional label with Northeast-based artists. Over the years, we slowly grew from that, learned the business and were able to expand. We started attracting better and bigger artists who were more career-oriented artists.

Around the year 2000, we signed/singer songwriter Richard Shindell, who had a much higher profile than most of the artists we worked with. He was doing national tours and had good radio play. We also signed very young artists such as Erin McKeown, who did a wonderful album that broke through and went on to record with Nettwork. After that, about every couple of years, we'd get an artist who'd come along and break through, such as Josh Ritter, Lori McKenna and Mary Gauthier. Along the way we signed Lake Street Dive, Crooked Still, Chris Smither, Eilen Jewell and many others.

Are you now making a more concerted efforts to keeping those artists on your artist roster?

We would love to, but we're also realistic in that we're based in a small community that's not in the center of a music scene. We've always been a niche, boutique label, and we're comfortable with the success we've had. Occasionally, yes, some leave to go on a bigger label - and there was a time when bigger labels were sniffing around us in terms of acquiring us. We have since branched out into live music production; we have our own club in our offices called The Parlor Room. We also put on a music festival, the Green River Festival in Greenfield, MA, and produce many concerts in clubs and theaters in the region.

When did you start The Parlor Room?

In 2012, we decided to move our label office to the city of Northampton. We moved downtown and rented a building; and we thought the front part of it would make a cool club, so we renovated it.

With the challenges labels like ours face in the current business climate, it became more apparent that we had to branch out. It made a lot of sense to get into the concert production end of things. It's another way to give exposure to our artists, particularly in this region. Part of our whole promotion plan is to build the touring career of our developing artists.

Do you plan on opening other venues?

Possibly, but it's not a priority. All of our artists tour internationally, so we have developed partnerships with clubs that love our artists and have booked them to perform over and over. We're small by design, so we're not looking to branch out to and conquer the world. We're happy with the size we are, signing quality artists.

And the Green River Festival?

The festival actually started in '90s, when we originally partnered in it with the local Chamber of Commerce. I had also been its talent buyer for it years. When The Chamber decided not to do it anymore, so we took it over and have entirely produced it for a number of years ourselves. It's a three-day festival that draws around 15,000 people.

We have a lot of things going on and they're all interconnected. The Green River Fest and The Parlor Room provide wonderful marketing opportunities with our artists to help grow their careers. Of course, we're obviously going to bring in other artists; the bills aren't solely going be artists on Signature Sounds, but they're all going to perform over a weekend and get to play for big crowds.

Signature's latest artist breakthrough is the band Dustbowl Revival. How were you able to get that band's music on the radio?

That band is such a great live band with a great sound. The horn sounds are really popular right now, thanks to the success of Nathaniel Rateliff and St. Paul & The Broken Bones. The horns-and-soul influence is one of the sounds Triple A programmers look for - and it has really never really gone out of style. Dustbowl Revival nicely straddles both Triple A and Americana. It's just commercial enough to work really well. It's somewhat reminiscent of what we were able to accomplish with Lake Street Drive, who had three albums on the Triple A charts. They've since moved to Nonesuch, where they've continued to be very successful. In fact, we discovered Dustbowl Revival when they were the opening act for Lake Street Drive.

Are you seeing more new bands, looking to get signed with Signature Sounds, trying to mimic the successful sounds of your biggest bands?

Yes. You can generally tell which new artists are being influenced by Signature acts. But we tend to look for more original sounds; we don't want to sign copycat stuff. And it's not just us. Right now there are so many bands that sound like the Lumineers; there are a lot of variations on that. I prefer to look for distinctive sounds and really good songs.

So you'd still be interested in signing bands that may not be applicable to Triple A radio?

If we feel the artist is doing the right thing, we sign it. We do have some artists, such as Chris Smither, who's really blues influenced and not so much Triple A anymore. He was at one time - and he was very successful - but he's gotten more acoustic based and mellow. However, we love what we does and he makes great albums.

Do you interact with your artists in how their future work or songs sound?

Yes, we definitely try and work with artists, but we tend to do that before they record. Budgets are so tight these days, once a record is delivered, it's too costly to have them go back in the studio. We try to be proactive about how they're planning to create a good sound, so when it comes time to actually make the record, the band can create something great that's not a huge expenditure.

How has the streaming revolution impacted your artists?

It has impacted everybody, no question about it. It's a different game than what it used to be. It's different for a lot of traditional artists. Chris Smithers is essentially from another era, and it's hard to make that switch. It's easier for young artists who are essentially born into this era to have success. Their fans of most of our artists are still into the physical product, which is contrary to popular belief. The fact that people still buy CDs is amazing to me.

Have or can your artists create music that's more conducive to streaming?

We do have ongoing conversations with our artists; we actually talk about changing their music to make it more stream-friendly, but I'm not sure we've gotten there yet. For instance, does it still make sense to even release 10-song albums anymore? It's not how the majority of people consume music these days; more people are listening to one song at a time and creating their own playlists. It's really like the old days when all you needed was a hit song -- only the programmers aren't in radio, but the audience themselves. I look at streaming as another form of radio.

Speaking of radio, as a former Triple A programmer, what do you think of the state of the current format?

My take is that Triple A actually seems fairly consistent - and has been for a while. I don't listen to a tremendous amount of Triple A radio, but overall, it seems pretty stable. If anything, I see the Americana world growing more than Triple A.

Finally, what do you see in the future for Signature and its place in the music industry?

I'm hopeful that we can continue to contribute some great music. As for what will happen 20 years from now, I don't honestly know. For one thing, I'm about to turn 60 and have a limited shelf life. You think about the changes in the last 10-15 years ... it's incredible. Who knows what the changes we'll see in the next 20 years?