{"id":111955,"date":"2017-01-19T17:29:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T01:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=111955"},"modified":"2017-01-19T17:29:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T01:29:39","slug":"the-meaning-of-a-landsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=111955","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning Of A Landsman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harvey Rachlin writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It was my first job out of college and I wasn\u2019t exactly thrilled when my boss told me: \u201cYou\u2019re going to Nashville.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was working for a small New Jersey-based music publisher. It was my job to get artists to record and labels to release songs owned by the company so that the songs could earn money for both the company and the writers of the songs.<\/p>\n

After having given me a week to listen to and familiarize myself with the bulk of the company\u2019s catalog of songs, the boss handed me a list of New York City buildings that were filled with offices occupied by music companies. He told me to knock on every door of every company that could record and release songs from our company\u2019s catalog and then try to meet with those companies\u2019 producers and executives to pitch our songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart on the top floor,\u201d he said, \u201cand work your way down to the first floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so I did, from top to bottom, building to building. Getting appointments with producers and music executives was challenging, to say the least, so you had to be super-aggressive and use your full powers of persuasion to get in. As an aspiring songwriter, I felt that learning the art of pitching songs could be beneficial \u2013 but it required me to be pushy to the point that it made me feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

So when my boss asked me to go to Nashville, I welcomed his order with about as much enthusiasm as I would a pickle and mustard sandwich. If cold solicitation in New York City had been no picnic, what would it be like in a southern city?<\/p>\n

First, I had heard that Nashville was extremely cliquey. If you weren\u2019t in country music\u2019s inner circles the doors were basically closed to you. Second, I wondered how I would fare there since my accent and looks pretty much marked me as a New York Jew.<\/p>\n

With a bit of trepidation I traveled to the capital of country music and found it just as I\u2019d imagined. It seemed very insular and I felt like an outsider.<\/p>\n

As I did in New York, I knocked on doors on the city\u2019s Music Row \u2013 which was essentially based on streets lined with houses where record labels and other companies had their offices.<\/p>\n

I got absolutely nowhere. I couldn\u2019t even get past the reception areas, which seemed to be guarded by the most unpersuadable people I\u2019d ever met. Time and again I was told the producers weren\u2019t taking appointments and wouldn\u2019t even listen to dropped-off demos.<\/p>\n

As a 22-year-old neophyte in the music business I really didn\u2019t know all that much about it, so I sometimes knocked on doors of companies involved in other aspects of the business but not looking for songs.<\/p>\n

One day my ignorance led me to one such door, and after I introduced myself the owner seemed to look at me with a glimmer of recognition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you a landsman?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Having never heard the word before, I thought for a second. Landsman? What\u2019s that? Like a Baptist, a Lutheran, an Episcopalian, or a Methodist?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you certainly look and sound Jewish,\u201d he replied, sounding almost disappointed.<\/p>\n

My face lit up. \u201cOh, but I am!\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, after pausing for a moment, I asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s a landsman?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA landsman\u2019s a fellow Jew,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

With a common bond now established, we struck up a friendship and I told him of my difficulty getting appointments in Nashville.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me make a phone call for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He called the head of a major music licensing organization in town and made an appointment for me to see him. When I went to his office I was greeted by a man with long blond hair. Wearing cowboy boots. And sporting a very gentile-sounding name. He obviously wasn\u2019t Jewish.<\/p>\n

I told him about the songs in my company\u2019s catalog and he was as nice as could be, working the phone and lining up appointments for me with some of country music\u2019s top record producers. These were not second- or third-tier apparatchiks, mind you, but men with hits at the very top of the country music charts \u2013 powerful men who would never have given me the time of day had it not been for the fellow with the long blond hair and the cowboy boots.<\/p>\n

But there was only one reason I\u2019d been able to meet that fellow in the first place: the kindness of the Jewish man who made it all possible because he recognized me as a fellow Jew.<\/p>\n

From that time on, I have never forgotten the meaning of the word landsman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harvey Rachlin writes: It was my first job out of college and I wasn\u2019t exactly thrilled when my boss told me: \u201cYou\u2019re going to Nashville.\u201d I was working for a small New Jersey-based music publisher. It was my job to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111956,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111955\/revisions\/111956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}