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By Kent Larsen
Major LDS Music Websites Make News
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- An article in the Deseret News this past weekend
looked at three major LDS music websites, discovering a growing
collaborative movement that "isn't just church hymns and choir music
anymore." The article looked at LDSMusicWorld.com, an LDS music directory,
and KZION.com and EnsignRadio.com, two "Internet Radio" websites that stream
music to listeners. But while the collaborative nature of these websites is
spreading familiarity with LDS music, all three are part-time efforts with
varying amounts of investment and it remains to be seen if any of these
efforts can become a self-supporting operation.
Probably the most useful of the three is LDSMusicWorld.com, which is more a
directory of LDS musicians than the others, something like the popular music
site mp3.com. As such it has the most complete list of LDS musicians
available, although some notable artists, such as Low and Randy Bachman are
missing, as are any musicians no longer performing (such as The Guess Who or
Bachman Turner Overdrive or Joe Bennett). And owner Jefferson Fairbanks, a
Boise, Idaho PhD who is chief of medical physics at Boise's St. Luke's
Regional Medical Center, credits this with some of his success, "People are
so interested in learning about others who are LDS. Take She-Daisy or Tal
Bachman -- most people don't know they are LDS, and they are intrigued by
that."
His involvement in music and the arts is no surprise, however, Fairbanks is
the grandson of prominent LDS sculptor Avard Fairbanks, and is a musician
himself. Currently LDSMusicWorld.com and its sister website LDSMusician.com
do not receive any revenue, but still attract about 50,000 page views each
month -- all from word-of-mouth advertising. Like the other music websites,
LDSMusicWorld.com avoids copyright trouble because artists donate their
songs for use on the site, and have the responsibility for making sure that
they have cleared copyright with the music's composer.
KZION.com developed after founder John Hesch offered an MP3 file of Janet
Clayton Sloan's song "Love Is A Verb" on his Home and Visiting Teaching
website, LDSTeach.com . When he got a strong positive response, and lots of
downloads, he decided to bring in other musicians. That developed into
offering the music in streaming audio, and last November, a radio station.
After starting with just 6 LDS musicians, Hesch has steadily added music
from musicians and even from publishers, who have donated dozens of albums
at once, giving Hesch a large list of music to draw from. Recently, KZION's
challenges have been mostly technical, with connectivity problems sometimes
interrupting the server's connection and users sometimes hitting his
capacity of 30 to 40 simultaneous listeners. And Hesch admits that the idea
of running an LDS radio station has excited him. "Yea, this is kind of like
a dream for me," he told Mormon News last November, "I've always wanted to
be a DJ and in a simple kind of way I can do that here."
In contrast, EnsignRadio.com has enough capacity, and slightly different
goals. Run by Las Vegas intellectual property attorney and musician Robert
Graham, EnsignRadio is trying to promote high-quality digital music by LDS
musicians as well as by Christian musicians. Graham's biggest frustration is
that so many recordings he receives are not the high-quality digital
broadcast quality sound he wants, "There are lots of talented musicians out
there, but many of them have four track recordings, and that's not really
broadcast quality sound. Right now there's just not a lot of financial
motivation for them to move into this kind of technology."
But Graham does have a vision of what LDS radio could be, "I'm kind of a
techno buff, and saw the future of radio moving away from AM/FM toward
Internet-based radio. I felt that taking an early step would be a smart
thing to do." So Graham has spent $100,000 on file servers and equipment,
and hopes to attract artists that are the highest quality, "Obviously people
like Gladys Knight, Thurl Bailey and Colors can provide that kind of sound.
But I'm looking at having to provide hours and hours of music and always
having to upgrade and give people something fresh." But since, Graham says,
he only gets one new LDS CD of sufficient quality every two months, he is
mixing in some Christian music to fill out the programing. He says that the
LDS market is about 10 years behind the Christian market, "We're getting
artists now that are learning to produce more of a pop sound. The essential
talent is there, but it needs to be developed a little and people in the
industry haven't turned their focus to the LDS market -- yet."
Source:
LDS Music Comes to Web
Deseret News 4Aug01 I4
By Carrie A. Moore: Deseret News religion editor
See also:
KZION Radio May Begin Independent LDS Radio
LDS Radio 'Instrumental' Channel Suspended
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