10 Questions with ... Jack Barton

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Peaches Records & Tapes right out of college (1979) morphed into a 16-year retail career. In 1995 I talked my way into a weekend overnight job at WXPN/Philadelphia that led to four years doing weekends and fill-ins, ending with a year as the Interim AMD, while also doing weekends at Classic Rock Rock107 (WEZX) in Scranton, PA. That led to the MD/Midday job at WYEP/Pittsburgh from 1998-2001. In 2001 I joined FMQB to run the Triple A department and have been there ever since, while planting the seeds of Jack Barton Entertainment in my free time.

1. How did you become interested in radio?

I have no idea, I just always wanted to be on the radio for as long as I remember. My dad was a music enthusiast (and an incredible, although amateur, pianist) who always had music on. My earliest radio recollections are of being fascinated by music coming out his car's dashboard. From there, at the tender age of four, I somehow gravitated to watching American Bandstand every afternoon and thought Dick Clark was the coolest guy ever. A few years later - at seven-years old - The Beatles happened. Halfway through their first song on their first Ed Sullivan appearance ("All My Loving"), I KNEW I wanted to work around music for the rest of my life.

2. What prompted you to leave broadcasting and move to the trade side?

Honestly, I'd been "on the beach" for about seven months except for some part-time work at an AC station outside Pittsburgh, and I needed a job. At the time the opportunity came up I thought it would be a chance to stay in the Triple A community, talking to both radio and labels every day, and would give me the best opportunity to either land at another Triple A station or break into the promotion side. What I found was that I was learning more about the entire industry and how all the elements - Radio, Promotion, Marketing, Management, Touring, etc. - work together to build careers than I ever could working at just one of them, and it still gave me the opportunity to impact artists' careers and the radio landscape. I still find that exhilarating, so I stuck with it - for 18-years now - and continued to add to my skill set while experiencing very satisfying professional growth.

3. Tell us about your transition away from FMQB to Jack Barton Entertainment.

Part of "adding to my skill set" was taking on management and consulting projects on the outside and after a number of years that grew into a "thing." A thing that also expanded to include both artist and festival Merchandise Management, with the consulting/management side also adding clients to a point that dictated starting a company, albeit one with kind of a boutique-y focus about who we're working with.

At some point I started to consider the options available to pull everything - Triple A radio services, management, merch management and consulting - under one umbrella. When I discussed this with FMQB ownership and management, we all agreed that it made more sense for JBE to absorb FMQB's Triple A businesses than it would the other way around (I owe a HUGE thank you to FMQB Owner/Publisher Kal Rudman and CEO Fred Deane for their support and encouragement to do so), so that brought us here. The boutique nature of Triple A as a format also made it fit perfectly with the other branches of the company.

4. Tell us about Beth and Ellie who work with you.

Beth Kaufmann - my wife of 40 years as of Halloween - came to FMQB in a temporary administrative capacity when we moved from Pittsburgh so I could take the Triple A Director job. She ended up working almost exclusively in Triple A and was so focused on the goals we were setting and was so dedicated to doing the best work possible, we ended up asking her to stay permanently. From there, we were able to put her other talents and skills to use to the point she became my right hand, doing everything I didn't have the time to do personally, including some writing. Beth truly was a full partner in building the Triple A department at FMQB and will contribute even more now that the radio services are part of JBE.

Ellie Cooper Sanders was with Dark Star Orchestra, selling merchandise for the band on tour, when I took the Merchandise Manager job with them in 2012 and I immediately found her to be an asset. Her passion for learning everything she can about the music industry and her dedication to doing the hard work to succeed made such an immediate impression on me that I started offering her piecemeal work wherever I found myself needing help, whether it be with management, merch management, FMQB or Boulder. Her talent and commitment continue to be unmatched, which is how she supplanted me as the lead interviewer for Pro.qb, as well as how she developed the skills to develop all JBE web, social and electronic services. Expect to see Ellie's contributions grow to include all aspects of JBE's business and for her leadership role within JBE to keep expanding.

5. The Triple A annual gathering has now morphed into the SummitFest and will be at a new hotel. Tells us how that came about.

The hotel change was strictly a matter of space and opportunity: the St. Julien is beginning construction on the pad where we put the tent for daytime catered events and they don't have two ballrooms, so we needed to find a second space to use for daytime events and - despite heroic efforts by the Julien management and staff - we just were not able to find a suitable space nearby to hold meeting that met our needs. At the same time, Embassy Suites has a brand new, beautiful hotel a few blocks away that has the meeting space we need as well as a patio for the daytime catered events. As our conversations continued it became clear the Embassy Suites staff was committed to providing excellent service and looked at the history at the Julien as a challenge to offer us the best work they can possibly do. With the quality of the property and the staff commitment to live up to the expectations we developed in 14-years with the Julien, it became an easy decision to set up shop at Embassy Suites.

The name was much simpler: New Company, New Event name. We wanted to nod toward the event's history (it had been the Summit until 2009) and since it's meetings (a Summit, if you will) and a music festival, SummitFest made the most sense.

6. As you enter this new chapter of the event, are you planning on introducing some new elements in the agenda?

The first and most obvious new element is the move to a Tuesday-Friday format instead of the traditional Wednesday-Saturday, with the hope that more people will be able to attend the full event without taking away from their weekend time at home. Beyond that, I'm always talking to anyone and everyone looking for new ideas and elements to introduce to the agenda. The challenge is always - as you know, John - the very delicate balancing act required to make all elements of the event work together to achieve all the goals. There are a lot of moving parts that all must balance out for the convention to work on a business level.

7. It is my understanding that you will also continue to generate a Noncomm Chart. How will that work?

Exactly as it has since 2010. We've built out a JBE tracking site that mirrors the one we've been using at FMQB and they've been working in tandem during the beta phase. By the time this runs, all tracking services will have moved to triplea.jackbartonentertainment.com, with anyone trying to access FMQB Triple A Tracking being redirected. All usernames and passwords remain the same, so we're hoping for a seamless transition.

8. What do you view as the most important issue facing Triple A radio today?

Building and retaining audience while maintaining our position as curators of Music Discovery. Continued success is ultimately going to rely on us finding the right ways to reach new generations and convince them that we can provide a more complete, diverse and satisfying curation and discovery experience than Alexa can, which is a daunting challenge. That's why we talk about it so much in Boulder

9. How do you feel about the current climate of music?

Creatively, I feel great - there are plenty of artists across the entire age and genre spectrums making great (and challenging) music and the technological advances have made it much easier to get that music in a form that can be delivered to the masses.

At the same time, those advances have led us to a place where a lot of consumers seem to find music to be more of a disposable commodity than ever before. It feels like, in many cases, they're not bonding with artists in the ways the public has before - just zeroing in on a song and moving on to the next artist and the next song. And that listener/artist relationship is key in building long-term careers.

10. What is the one truth that has held constant throughout your career?

"Do the right things for the right reasons and the results will follow."

Last non-industry job:

Telemarketer

First record ever purchased:

Introducing The Beatles on Vee Jay Records

First concert:

My parents took me to see Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass in 1968 (I was a trombone player and loved the horns); First concert with my friends: Blood, Sweat & Tears/Savage Rose/Edwin Hawkins Singers in 1969.

Favorite band of all-time:

Grateful Dead. As if you didn't know... (us Dead Heads have never been good at "incognito.")

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time away from work?

Since I guess going out to see music doesn't count as "away from work," Basketball. Playing, watching, it doesn't matter. I just love the game.