David Bither has one thing on his thoughts. Sitting at his desk on the Warner Music Group’s midtown Manhattan workplaces, he pulls up a recording he heard the night time earlier than on SiriusXM’s Beatles Channel: achieved jazz pianist Brad Mehldau performing his solo interpretation of “I Am the Walrus,” off his upcoming album of Beatles covers out Feb. 10. It’s the final minute of the tune Bither retains coming again to: how Mehldau teases out the melodies, takes the tune to new locations that appear directly utterly disconnected from the acid-infused silliness of John Lennon’s unique and on the identical time nonetheless retaining its pop essence.
It’s a Friday afternoon, which in these post-pandemic days means there are few, if any, others within the constructing. However Bither is right here, as he has been for many years, manning the ship for Nonesuch Information’ eclectic, intensely creative roster of musicians. His workplace is bursting with vinyl data, and plaques and posters line the partitions and the ground: Emmylou Harris, the Velvet Underground, Steve Reich, artists who’ve influenced him deeply, on each a private {and professional} stage. It’s no marvel his focus is, always, on the music, which filters out by his open workplace door into the constructing’s hallways.
That concentrate on the music, and the wildly totally different ways in which music might be expressed, has paid off greater than ever this 12 months: on the upcoming sixty fifth annual Grammy Awards, Nonesuch — the label at which Bither has labored formally since 1995, unofficially since 1986, and of which he grew to become president in 2017 — acquired 15 nominations, probably the most within the label’s 59-year historical past. And people nominations run the gamut of genres: rock (The Black Keys), blues (Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal), folks (the Punch Brothers), jazz (Cécile McLorin Salvant; and Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade), modern instrumental (Mehldau), chamber music (Caroline Shaw), historic (the Twentieth-anniversary version of Wilco’s Yankee Lodge Foxtrot) and bluegrass (Molly Tuttle). Reflecting the label’s dedication to presentation, each musical and bodily, there have been nominations for producer of the 12 months, non-classical (Dan Auerbach), greatest association, devices and vocals (McLorin Salvant) and greatest album notes (Bob Mehr for the YHF field; Fernando Gonzalez for Astor Piazzolla field set The American Clave Recordings). Most surprising of all, there was a greatest new artist nomination for Tuttle, the primary bluegrass artist to ever obtain such recognition.
It’s a powerful haul for a label that employs simply 12 staffers within the States and three within the U.Ok., and one which hardly ever, if ever, traffics within the music mainstream. However it’s additionally a testomony to Bither’s function as a determine who, as his predecessor Bob Hurwitz did earlier than him, stands up and supplies a platform for artists to specific themselves in lots of types, no matter what number of streams they could rack up or data they could promote.
“It’s simply retaining your ears open to what’s happening and realizing there’s a whole lot of doorways on the market to open, and to be open to that and be casting the online as huge as we will,” he says, reflecting on the breadth of these nominations. “However with the sorts of music we’ve been concerned in, I don’t suppose that 20 years in the past we might have been nominated in all these classes. They didn’t all exist then, however we weren’t making data in all these locations. Now, I don’t suppose there’s a class that might be off-limits to us.”
Nonesuch has hardly ever been beholden to a specified lane. Based in 1964 by legendary government Jac Holzman as a price range classical label, the imprint was led for greater than a decade by Tracey Sterne, who established its classical bonafides whereas increasing into indigenous music from all over the world. The label was bought to Warner in 1970 and, in 1984, was shifted to fall beneath Elektra Information boss Bob Krasnow, who employed Hurwitz to run a newly-reimagined Nonesuch — one which rapidly expanded into a house for modern composers, jazz artists and musicians from all around the world. Bither, who had a background in music journalism and efficiency arts facilities just like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was working at WMG mum or dad Warner Communications on the time and established a rapport with Hurwitz and his advertising and marketing chief Peter Clancy — sufficient in order that when Krasnow wanted a brand new head of worldwide for Elektra, Hurwitz really helpful Bither, although he had no expertise within the file enterprise.
“There have been a couple of eyebrows raised for positive, and I give Bob Krasnow credit score perpetually for taking that threat,” Bither says. “They’d do conventions yearly of all of the labels with shows, and I used to be on the large worldwide assembly at Montreux inside two weeks; I didn’t even know what was popping out on Elektra. We went on a highway present to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and I used to be going to be presenting Elektra’s 1987 slate of releases. In order that’s how I bought began.”
Bither discovered rapidly, and after a couple of years working worldwide he shifted to home advertising and marketing, then to the GM function, engaged on tasks for Metallica, Tracy Chapman and 10,000 Maniacs, amongst others. However he had maintained a casual advisory function at Nonesuch, with Hurwitz sliding him $1 a 12 months for his enter previous to him taking the Elektra job and Bither bringing artists to Nonesuch through the years. So when Warner went by an government upheaval within the mid-Nineties, Hurwitz introduced Bither on full-time — a partnership that continues to this present day, whilst Hurwitz stepped again into a md function in 2017 and relinquished the label presidency to Bither.
That interval coincided with among the most important Nonesuch offers within the label’s historical past: partnering with World Circuit Information to launch three albums from the Buena Vista Social Membership that collectively bought hundreds of thousands worldwide, in a deal that happened after Hurwitz requested Bither what music was emanating from his workplace that specific day; signing Harris and Laurie Anderson, artists from the foremost label system who wanted a inventive outlet to discover totally different types of expression; bringing on the Black Keys and Wilco, two acts who would make a major influence on rock and different music; and placing out Brian Wilson’s SMILE, the end result of a 50-year journey to launch one among music historical past’s most legendary tasks. Nonesuch grew to become a house for artists who wouldn’t match wherever else, who had one thing to say past the extraordinary.
“Possibly due to my worldwide background, however the concept of this music coming from all these totally different locations felt like there was a house for lots of various concepts at Nonesuch,” Bither says. “It was totally different than what the larger, mainstream labels had been doing. And that was the mission: it was the mission when Bob began, and it’s the mission 40 years later, to attempt to do these issues. We’re not gonna compete with the large labels; it’s not what we do. However I believe there are a whole lot of different alternatives, possibly greater than ever now, due to the best way that the enterprise has developed, for music that’s actual, that has unique voices.”
“The label is that the majority quaint of labels, in an excellent means — one which seeks to comply with an artist as they develop and alter, reasonably than rely upon the fast hit,” says Rhiannon Giddens, who has labored with Nonesuch for the reason that starting of a profession that has spanned nation, folks, bluegrass, soul, Gospel, jazz, R&B, operas and ballets. “It’s exhausting to think about one other dwelling that might let me be me so utterly. David has been an unbelievable help, sounding board and simply all-around glorious pal to me, by the ups downs and sideways of my weirdo profession, and I merely wouldn’t be the place I’m at this time with out him.”
These actual, unique voices and musicians are on show with Nonesuch’s Grammy nominees this 12 months — starting with Tuttle, the uber-talented guitarist, singer and songwriter who had lately change into the primary lady to win guitarist of the 12 months on the Worldwide Bluegrass Music Affiliation awards when Bither met her in 2019 in Manhattan. Her album along with her band Golden Freeway, Crooked Tree, brings bluegrass into the trendy dialog, with lyrics that mirror a 2022 actuality reasonably than a century-old artwork kind, and with musicianship that’s mind-spinning. (“Once I met David Bither, we immediately linked, and I used to be struck with how a lot thought and care he places into the albums that Nonesuch releases,” says Tuttle. “I’ve cherished being a part of such a various and sensible household of musicians [and] I’m trying ahead to working alongside the Nonesuch group for a few years to come back.”) However whereas Nonesuch had hoped for a greatest bluegrass album nomination, her nod for greatest new artist got here as a shock.
“Did we predict she was going to be greatest new artist? We didn’t suppose that the day the nominations had been introduced,” Bither says. “However she had one thing particular, and it’s going to be actually thrilling to see what comes subsequent. I’ve come to know — having sat on the Grammys now for a few years with artists and others — how a lot it means to the artists. It’s connected surgically to their names perpetually after. I believe Molly Tuttle’s identify will imply one thing that it didn’t imply six weeks in the past, and that may inform all the things that occurs with the following file. The sky’s the restrict, and what she’s now earned is the flexibility to determine for herself. It’s about her as an artist, not about determining a lane for her to drive in and proceed driving there.”
There’s something to the longevity of Nonesuch’s mission, in addition to the long-standing management guiding it, that tends to convey artists again. Ry Cooder has labored with the label for the reason that Buena Vista days within the late Nineties; Brad Mehldau has labored with them since 2004. The Black Keys had their choose of any label on the earth once they signed with Nonesuch in 2006, and after 17 years, 18 Grammy nominations and 7 wins, they’re nonetheless right here. Wilco spent a decade on the label earlier than heading out to kind their very own operation, however when it got here time to arrange the Twentieth-anniversary field set of Yankee Lodge Foxtrot, they got here again to Nonesuch to get it achieved.
“There was no means if we had achieved this ourselves that it will have come out almost pretty much as good, or almost as expansive, nor would it not have gotten the remedy within the media that Nonesuch was capable of get,” says Josh Grier, Wilco’s former lawyer and present supervisor. “They might have made this loads easier for themselves and doubtless nonetheless bought a good quantity of data and made some cash, they usually went loads additional than that. Jeff [Tweedy], like most musicians, doesn’t like trying again; he likes to deal with his new data. David made it appear contemporary and confirmed a whole lot of power for the challenge that bought Tweedy again engaged. It’s sort of good to come back again after 20 years and see the identical man sitting on the desk.”
Rather a lot has modified since Bither first labored at Nonesuch; the shift from gross sales to streaming, for one factor, in addition to the tastes of the mainstream. (The character of streaming providers, which cater principally to mega-hit singles, has made it harder to interrupt by the noise, he notes.) However the label continues to be managing to thrive because it comes up on its sixtieth anniversary subsequent 12 months, and this coming weekend’s Grammys could possibly be a capstone for a spot that continues to thrive with its specific sense of creative style, in an ecosystem that isn’t essentially set as much as reward it.
“I don’t do interviews fairly often, as a result of it’s not about us, it’s about all these artists that we’re right here to help,” Bither says. “However it did really feel now that due to all these nominations, it does say one thing about us as a label that I believe is necessary to be stated. And , these will not be straightforward instances for the enterprise. We’re all struggling to be heard over the din of the 100,000 tracks a day being uploaded. However I believe there’ll at all times be a spot for what we do. We’ve by no means checked out it as being a distinct segment, we’ve checked out it as being a couple of sure sort of high quality. And the world of music is an enormous world.”
