Depending on your age, and where you grew up, Barry Polisar might have played a significant role in how you first started listening to music as a child. Barry is a veteran entertainer who has spent decades making music and performing it for kids. His impressive career is filled with accomplishments, including: writing songs sung by the character Big Bird in Sesame Street, publishing several children’s books, starring in his own television show, and even performing at the White House. Of all of his successes, the one that is the most telling, in regards to the significance of his career, is a recent tribute compilation entitled “We’re Not Kidding.” This release consists of Barry cover-songs, and was recorded by artists of all genres that grew up listening to Barry’s music.
Beyond Barry’s success as an artist, he’s also a music entrepreneur who began his career by booking himself in unique venues, including schools and libraries. He’s also sold music directly to his audience (and their parents) live and online for many years. Barry’s story is compelling and full of lessons for artists of all genres.
Barry, can you discuss how you sell music?
For 35 years I put out a series of record albums for children and basically marketed and sold them myself. Although I do have distribution through Amazon.com, CD Baby, and iTunes for the longest time it was just people either buying my albums on my Web site or after concerts.
There were significant barriers to selling. How were you selling your music for all those years before the Internet?
Well it was really a grassroots, word of mouth network. Now I never had the numbers that say a mainstream record album label or distributor would have, but I did fairly strong sales. I have about 350,000 CDs, records, cassettes and books in print. Of course, that represents 35 years.
Of course when my song was in Juno, they sold 600,000 CDs in just a few months and then sold well over 1 million copies. I could never do that. However, I really concentrated on not necessarily quantity but a sense of quality. Not just in terms of the product and the songs that I wrote and created and the albums that I recorded, but also in terms of just the audience. The people that found my material I think saw it for what it was, which was something that was really different.
It was not mainstream. It was not the standard kind of children’s music you were going to hear anywhere else. And here it is 35 years later, I think I have so many fans because they realized even at a young age that this was something that just was not your normal children’s fare. So I sold my record albums to schools, to libraries…I sold through catalog sales.
I would mail my catalog to schools and libraries. I would do a lot of sales after my concerts. And then of course when the Internet came around I did get a Web site pretty early on and basically just offered my records and by then it was CDs online. And even to this day, I do sort of a crazy thing; I’m not actually set up to take credit cards.
I actually send the CDs out along with a bill and people always email back and say I couldn’t figure out where to put the credit card information. I said, “No, no I’m just going to send you the CD with a bill. When you get it just send me a check back.” And they say, “Really, I’m a complete stranger.” But, you know, I’ve really never gotten burned too badly. Yeah, occasionally people don’t pay their bills, but for the most part they do. And I think again there I sort of struck up a personal relationship with people who are my fans or people who listen to my material.
Wow. Do you find or hear stories from parents saying that they listened to your music when they were kids?
Oh absolutely. I mean my audiences now and the people who are emailing me on the Web site are basically people who either had my albums as kids or are now raising their own children on my songs and my CDs. And of course with my song in the film Juno, a lot of people who sort of forgot about me, who had my albums as kids, suddenly you have the right demographic from that movie.
They’re in the theater; they hear my voice and go “Oh my, I know that voice. That’s the guy I used to listen to as a kid.” And so a lot of people have gotten in touch with me as a result of that. A lot of people have emailed me from my Web site, from my Facebook page or MySpace page and so I’m hearing from fans that way. And that’s exactly what so many of them are saying, that they had my albums as kids and now they have children of their own.
And now they’re getting my CDs and of course they’re doing downloads and going onto iTunes and that sort of thing. And of course, the new project for me is this tribute album that just came out which actually is a series of kids who have my albums who have grown up and become musicians themselves and everything from hip hop to jazz to folk to rock and roll, and taken my songs and they’ve recreated them in their own genres. And that’s just been an amazing thing for me to listen to and to hear their songs.
That’s the ultimate compliment and testament to your career- Kids growing up and paying tribute to you.
It’s amazing. I mean the – having my song in Juno was pretty amazing for me and it definitely an interesting ride. But this touches me in almost a more fundamental way because it is exactly what you just said, it’s kids that had my albums, you know, when they were growing up and have somehow been affected by those songs. And many of them said that I was their first concert or first record album or listening to me sing kind of gave them the idea that maybe they could do something like that when they got older. And so yeah, that’s been amazing.
Do you find that that’s really the secret of success, your connection with your audience?
Well absolutely. And it sometimes, you know, gets a little zany because especially now between Facebook and MySpace and the internet and I’m available everywhere, I mean, you know, when people friend me I think there is a fan site that somebody else put up, but if they got to my Facebook page for instance or my MySpace page that goes to me directly, personally. Same thing with my email on my Web site when people email me from my Web site they’re not going through an agent or any mediary they’re actually connecting with me.
I remember years ago I used to get snail mail. I used to get letters from kids and cards from kids who saw me at the library or at their school and they would write to me and I always wrote back because I felt like anybody who was reaching out and connecting deserved that respect and deserved that kind of personal contact.
And, it’s been very funny getting emails and I can’t tell you how many people have emailed back and said “You know, I wrote you a letter when I was like seven years old and you answered me and I had that on my wall for years!” And that’s sort of what it’s about. I mean I never want to be so big I can’t respond to people. I’ve got to tell you, you know, you were talking before about the success of the internet having my song on iTunes was really how Jason Reitman the director of Juno found me for that film.
So, he found you online and then he reached out to license the song for the soundtrack?
Yeah, he tells the story that he was actually looking for a song by a different name. I think he was looking for a song called You’re the One I Want and he accidentally typed in the wrong words. He typed in All I Want is You instead and then came upon my song and said, “What’s this? That’s not what I was looking for.” But hit the play button and said “Oh that’s fun.” He paid his 99 cents and he bought the song and then had his music supervisors email me and ask if I would license it to them.
At that point nobody knew what Juno would become. I mean it was just a small little independent film and every musical artist form Cat Power to Kimya Dawson were all going to get the same rate. I said, “Sure I’ll go along with that as long as there’s fairness, everybody’s being treated equal, I’d be happy to do that.” And there wasn’t a whole lot of money involved in the file.
What happened – the money sort of in a funny way came later because they did a soundtrack of that album. And the soundtrack sold 1 million copies, and so the royalties started coming in from that. Not from the movie. Everybody thinks, “oh you had your song in Juno. You must’ve made $1 million.” I think it was like $5,000 was the flat fee for the song.
It was a very small licensing fee. But, you know, because the movie was successful and then the soundtrack was successful, you know. It just got picked up everywhere, downloads, on the soundtrack, and iTunes… and suddenly started paying royalties from that.
Sony Music then stepped in and actually managed that one – it’s funny I’ve written 150 songs, but that was the one they wanted to manage because of the visibility of the film.
They actually have put the song on a number of commercials overseas. Equally importantly, they’ve also let it be used for some public service announcements for some pretty good causes.
Interesting. Has this resulted in more performances for you and more traveling?
Well not really. I mean I have to say that I think that’s because the demographic of what the movie is, versus what I really do. I mean I work in the elementary schools. And those kids don’t even – wouldn’t have even seen the movie, it’s more of a mature topic for an elementary school kid. I have played a few colleges indirectly I think as a result of the film.
And I think a lot of places have hired me because of the visibility from the film. But it really hasn’t had the same kind of bump that let’s say Kimya Dawson probably got from the film because the film is really her demographic. That is really her audience, whereas my audience is much younger. Now what it has done for me personally is something even deeper and more fundamental, and that is that it has connected me. It has reconnected me with the people that had my albums as kids who saw the movie as adults, and that’s just been an amazing thing.
As a writer, as a performing artist, as a musician I think you really ultimately want to be able to connect with your audience. You want to have a song that’s successful. You want to be able to write and produce and record something that resonates with people. And it’s very funny that this song, which in a funny way was a throw away song for me. It was in a funny way a filler on my second album released in 1977, and then forgotten about for 30 years until it was found and then used in the film.
It’s sort of given me a new visibility with adults, and I guess in some respects it is adults who are the teacher and the parents and the librarians who hire me and bring me into their schools and bring me into their libraries. But in terms of my core audience, which is kids, it hasn’t done too much.
In regards to building the awareness, especially early on, how many shows were you able to do? And, were you spreading yourself throughout different regions?
I was a maniac when I was younger. I’m 55 now and I started when I was about 20-21 years old. I mean I would sing and perform in schools and libraries all over the US, as far as Alaska, up into New England, out in the Midwest, down South into Florida. Pretty much anywhere that would invite me to do a program in their school or library. What I used to do is print and mail catalogs, which had my picture on the front, and inside listed my CD or back then it was record albums.
Basically, I would just mail those catalogs to schools and libraries all over the country. I sort of stopped when the Internet came because it’s a greener way of reaching people. But, let’s say doing a tour down in Florida, let’s say three or four schools in Florida want to bring me in. I’ll go on the web, and I’ll look and try to find emails for all the elementary schools in a particular area where I’m going to be and let them know that I’m coming to visit, and that they can go onto my site if they want to get my information.
There’s a lot of grunt work involved, and I’ve done that, and I still do. I sometimes have this ability to just sit down at my computer and just punch out emails until I get all the information out to the people that I think need to see it. There probably is a better, smarter way of doing it. But, my goal has always been to just get my songs off my shelf to have them in people’s hearts and having them sing them. And I’ve been pretty successful at that over the years.
That’s phenomenal. You did all this without traditional distribution?
That’s correct. Periodically through my life I had various kinds of distribution. But the distribution, especially in music, was always very spotty. There was a folk distributor out in Vermont that I actually talked the owner into carrying my CDs or my record albums when she first started her business.
She ended up being the preeminent children’s record distributor. I think she sold her company to somebody else and the company eventually folded.
I saw on your site that you have a variety of books. Was that something you were doing early on or is that fairly new?
I’ve always considered myself more of a song writer, more of a poet than I have actually a full fledged musician. I don’t even read music. I do it all by ear, and so I’ve always had a love of literature, a love of writing, a love of poetry, a love of music. And so books were sort of a natural extension of my career. It was very easy to write songs and poems but also to write books for kids as well. And that’s really how the schools bring me in.
The schools really bring me in as a visiting author for kids who happen to also play the guitar and write songs. So they get the best of both worlds. They get this – instead of getting this very dry, droll sort of monotone author talking about where you get your ideas, they get this performing artist who sings songs and tells stories and makes the kids laugh, at the same time talking about the craft of writing and doing rough drafts and revisions.
So they really do work hand in hand. In addition to the new CD, the tribute album that just came out, I also have a new book that’s coming out in a month or two of children’s poems. The books usually don’t get as much attention out there in the world as the new albums or the new songs. They get released and they get a little bit of notice but they don’t get the flash I think that an album typically does.
Were you also distributing the books in the same manner?
Yeah, I was. My first book was called Noises From Under the Rug. And, it was a collection of all my songs. It was effectively a songbook. It was very easy to take my music and get the sheet music done and put some illustrations together, and keep it as part of my already existing audio line of recordings for kids. I did eventually get a distributor to take me on and I do have distribution now. For instance I have great book distribution. They sell my books and they also carry my CDs, but they’re really a book distributor who basically lists my CDs along with my books.
Let’s talk a little bit about activity online. What are some of the most effective things that you’ve done?
People looking for my CDs and my books will find them on my Web site. But I really put the site together as a resource for people to sort of find out about what I do. And so if you noticed, I actually have my songs online for people to listen to for free.
I have 150 songs and just about half of the songs, even on the tribute album, are available just for people to press that little button and listen to for free. I’m also currently putting all of my books online as digital downloads for kids who want to read them. I go into inner city schools or rural schools or just any school where kids just cannot afford to buy a book or to buy a CD and so this makes everything available to everybody for free.
And I know it does sort of run counter to the world of selling and the world of sales, but I’ve always been of the mind that if you just put stuff out there it’ll come back to you one way or another. And so yes, I definitely use the Internet for making all those connections. But a lot of what’s on my site is just stuff I give away and let people use and take for free.
Interesting, because that’s really the biggest problem at least as far as the record labels are concerned, is the perception of free music. It’s also a buzzword in regards to marketing today. Is something that you’ve been doing for quite some time, giving it away?
It is, and unlike Radiohead- I think Radiohead asked people to send in whatever they think it’s worth. I don’t even do that. I just have the stuff there and the idea is that enough people will listen and like it and order a CD. But even if they don’t, you know, it’s just nice to be able to tell people, especially kids who are not really the buying public “You want to listen to the songs? They’re on my website.
You can go there; you can just click a bunch of buttons and listen to song after song after song.” So yeah, it has been something I’ve done a long time. I’m just now getting around to doing the books because only two of my twelve books that’ve been published so far were created in the digital age.
Once I got digital copies of my newer books, I said “Boy I’d like to just digitize everything and just put it out there so kids can read the books.” I don’t think it’s going to be the end of my career. I think that enough people will read the books online and say, “Hey, you know, I like this book. I think I’ll order it for a gift or I’ll order it for my children.” I know that not everybody will. I mean a lot of people will know that if they want to read the book it’s always there online and that’s okay too.
I sort of think about it the way I used to think about record albums. I used to find artists, and admittedly they were usually obscure folk singers and obscure singer song writers that not too many had heard of. I’d buy their albums. I’d buy all of their albums. But, I would always make cassette tapes for my friends of some of my favorite singer songwriters and artists.
And I’ll tell you to this day, I go to concerts and I say “Oh yeah, look who’s here. I remember when I gave you that first tape 20 years ago.”
We’re the singer songwriters who are sort of living on the edge. To me, I think the publicity, and getting the name out is probably at least as valuable as making a couple of dollars on a CD sale. Because and I guess that’s the philosophy of Radiohead and some of these newer groups…
In regards to selling on your site, you accept payment, via checks, after shipping the product?
Yeah, I’m still doing that. Not as many people order online now because, you can go onto Amazon.com and find my stuff. You can go to iTunes. And those are more – I guess people are more comfortable with those traditional places. I think the people who tend to go to my site and order are fans who along with their order will also say, “Hey I had your albums growing up and now I’m buying this for my kids.”
But with Juno a lot of people came to me, you know, a lot of people discovered me for the first time after Juno.
I think some people were truly surprised because they fell in love with my song All I Want is You and then they go to my website and they go “Oh this guy’s a children’s singer and this guy writes for kids.” I have written 140, 150 songs, and I’d say probably 20 or 30 of them are in the very similar vein to Juno. There’s a – in fact a number of them are on the tribute album. You know, with a giggle and hug and a tickle and kiss and me and you. I mean there are a number of songs that I’ve written that are very similar to All I Want is You. And, it’s kind of fun to see that a lot of those are also covered in the tribute album.
In regards to selling on Amazon, you mentioned CD Baby earlier, is that who you use for Amazon or do you sell to them directly?
I should know this- I think CD Baby does most of the distribution. I think CD Baby sells to iTunes and all the other places. Amazon also gets my stuff from CD Baby, but I think they also get some of it from me because I also set myself up as what they call a marketplace seller.
And the reason I did is because I see that there are a lot of people that go onto Amazon.com and sell my recordings for like $60, $70, $80 for a CD. I set myself up as a marketplace seller to sell at the list price of $14.95, because I just didn’t want to see people gouged by the pricing of some unscrupulous second sellers.
I would imagine if someone’s willing to pay $60, that’s also a tribute to you. They’re only going to pay what it’s worth.
But it’s not like the albums are out of print. They are in print. Why they would even get listed at that price I don’t even know. For a while my original recordings that I released in the ‘70s from up to about 1982-83 were out of print.
I had gone back into the recording studio and rerecorded a lot of my older songs and newer albums mostly because humor changes over time and sensibilities change…things that people think are funny 30 years ago, maybe they’re not so funny anymore. And so I had rerecorded a lot of my songs. I gave some of them a musical facelift. I edited some of the lyrics, tightened up some of the bad rhymes.
What happened of course is that as my original fans got older, they were really clamoring for those original albums that they had when they were kids, complete with all the off-key, out of tune guitar playing, off key singing. For a while I was like sort of saying, “Oh gosh those albums are so bad.” They were like basement albums. I recorded my first two albums for something like $250 in studio time.
I mean I just went into a recording studio and I sang into a microphone and three hours later came out with 18, 19 songs and slapped them on album. Never expecting I would do this as a career. It was really a way to just sort of put my songs out there. People heard me singing them. They asked me if I had an album. I never expected to make a living doing this.
I’m still sort of baffled 35 years later that I’ve been able to carve out a successful career for over three decades. So when the original albums went out of print I think their market value picked up briefly. But then I sort of got the master tapes and reissued them all on CD. And so now they’re all out there for a reasonable price now.
There’s something to be said about music that has lasted, that has seriously lasted, the test of time.
It was interesting for me because I never quite understood why people wanted those original versions, the actual albums, you know, song by song by song. And then I actually was looking for an album that I had as a kid, and I went onto the artist’s website and I saw that he had done the same thing. He had reissued all of his albums, all of his songs and newer recordings a little bit more polished. And I went, “Wow!” I wanted that album. I wanted that exact album. And it was like an “ah-ha” moment- like a light bulb that went over and I went, “oh now I get it.” And as a matter of fact that was sort of the reason that I decided to reissue the original recordings because I suddenly realized what my fans were looking for.
They were indeed looking for the stuff that – you know, sometimes especially when you’re young and you play an album over and over and over and over again, you almost anticipate the next song. You anticipate each note because you’re so familiar with the flow of the album. And I think that was what was going on with people asking for my original material.
Very true. I could definitely relate to that. Actually not too long ago I bought some music from my childhood, and when I heard it as an adult I was like, “Wow that was so basic.” And the recording wasn’t really that great either, but I still loved it. It still meant something. I still felt that nostalgic connection.
So who was it?
It was Paula and Carol. They once broadcast out New York. They were also a folk duo, and had a children’s show. As an adult, I realized, that they were really just regional.
Every city, every state has their one or two people, kind of like the two women that you mentioned watching on TV. There’re a few of us that I guess do break out into a national scene. And I guess that’s what everybody hopes to do.
Now I’ve always sort of felt on the outside of the music industry even though I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve always felt that I didn’t really belong anywhere. I wasn’t really a folk artist because I was writing my own songs. I wasn’t doing traditional songs. And, I was writing about my own experiences.
I didn’t really fit in with the other children as artists because I wasn’t politically correct and my songs were a little weird- they were a little edgy. They were just not your typical standard fare. All these years later I’ve just sort of carved out my own niche, in a funny way maybe by necessity, because I really wasn’t able to be easily pigeonholed into a specific genre.
I saw on your website that you had written songs for Sesame Street.
Not necessarily for Sesame Street. Sesame Street call me in, at one point they wanted to put out an album called Big Bird Sings Barry Louis Polisar. My songs, especially my early songs are all about kids’ rights and giving voice to kids who didn’t really have a voice. So they thought this would be great.
They were going to do an album of kids liberation songs by Barry Louis Polisar. So they asked me to write a couple of songs. And they called back in and they had all these words circled that they were questioning, either the words were too mature or they were too edgy. And, so that project never went anywhere. But then low and behold about a year or two later I found out that Sesame Street had released an album with Big Bird singing one of my songs.
And it wasn’t one of the ones that I had written for them. I was one that I had written just on an album. Actually that was the first song of mine that had ever been covered by anybody else. So I like to say that Big Bird was the first person to every record one of my songs other than myself.
That was the original tribute.
The original cover, yes. It was a song called I’ve Got a Dog and My Dog’s Name is Cat.
Speak with me about your TV show.
I had a TV show for about three years. I was eventually replaced by puppets, and then the show went off the air. But, won two local Emmy Awards. It got lots of accolades from teachers. It was basically an educational show that should’ve been on PBS, but was on the network. It was on an ABC affiliate in Washington, DC, and it was broadcast all over the country. I mean it got a lot of coverage and, you know, really made its way around the world.
I think that was on in 94-95, 96-97, like 94-97, maybe even going up to 98. It was on for about three or four years. It was on originally as local Washington show and then syndicated to about eight or nine stations, and then openly I think they had a couple hundred stations that broadcast it all across the country.
When Juno’s soundtrack wins a Grammy, do you get one as well?
No. I don’t even know who actually got the physical Grammy, probably Jason Reitman, the Director…he was the one that picked the songs.
I think you should be able to at least get a copy of that.
Yeah, I guess, I got a picture for my website. Sometimes you do things as a performing artist that just sound good. I played the White House. It wasn’t my best show. It wasn’t great, but it sounds good to say, “I played the White House. I played the Kennedy Center. I played the Smithsonian.” It represents a great milestone in my career. I just feel like I was part of a bigger thing, and that was great.
Interview conducted by Israel Vasquetelle.
Visit Barry Louis Polisar online at http://www.barrylou.com
