Today we’d like to introduce you to Skip Heller.
Skip, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I got here in 1995. Started out by producing reissues for tiny labels, interviewing notable older musicians for LA Weekly and BAM, then wound up doing all kinds of live and recording gigs. Yma Sumac, Stan Ridgway, NRBQ, Phil Alvin, Lalo Guerrero, Cannibal and the Headhunters, Tish Hinojosa, Bootsy Collins … film/TV music including Bernie Mac Show, the Flintstones last TV movie, Dexter’s Lab, Disney. Where I am is a very small apartment in Hollywood. Could be worse.
Has it been a smooth road?
When I got here (95-ish), I was 30, and that was already old in terms of establishing yourself in any town, let alone a place like Los Angeles. Also, I arrived as the record business was starting to implode on itself, so I was in a new city dealing with a profession that was undergoing pretty incredible change in every way. The music business of old (so to speak) was evaporating, and the biggest challenge was often just to stay in music. There were certainly people who were already doing what I had hoped to do and were more accomplished at it than I was, like Joey Altruda, who is a reallybrilliant player and composer. I did everything from rearranging classical pieces for elementary school bands to giving guitar lessons,writing lead sheets for vocalists, mariachi jobs, demo production — really unglamorous stuff, but it put me in touch with a wide range of musicians and singers, many of whom I still work with.
I don’t think it’s smooth for most of us, but for the most part, I can’t say my hard times have been worse than anyone else’s. I have friends who have fallen hard from high places. I’ve been lucky.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I do a lot of things — play in a wide variety of styles, compose, arrange, orchestrate, put reissues together, score a film, write an article. I’ve had to keep a hand to all of them in order to keep eating. I have a feeling that I’m not good enough at any one thing to making a living at *that*. Here’s an example — last summer, I played with Bootsy Collins (the great funk bassist in the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame). That same week, I was at work on an archival compact disc release of recordings by the legendary bluegrass musician JohnHartford. Right now, I’m finishing an EP for Birdie Jones, the wonderful singer who I work with in my band Carnival of Soul, which is a soul band with horns. Her record is more Burt Bacharach-ish, with extended instrumentation, strings and all. We’re getting ready to cut a new Carnival of Soul EP, and I’m going to Philadelphia in August to make a live album with Heath Allen, a fantastic piano there who I’ve been playing with since 1983. I sound more prolific than I am, believe me.
Most people specialize in a type of music and even only do one thing in that type of music. I started out as a guitar player, but often enough the calls I get are to write horn arrangements, string arrangements, produce. This week, my gigs are two-afternoon shows playing for Holocaust survivors, and a nightclub gig with Carnival of Soul. Next week, my bluegrass band, and I’m working on a proposal to get reissues happening of some 60s Latin music.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Best — the history and diversity of it. I still feel like a fan. Also, so many people come here to work in the arts that you’re never at a loss for interesting people to work with. It keeps idealism alive, and that’s important. And the people who come here come here with a real hunger to be part of the place, so we’ve all become amateur historians and tourguides. I’ve never seen a city — not even Nashville — whose residents are so absorbed by their adopted home.
Worst — the overbuilding, the politics of show business, latent racism, the fact that old buildings get torn down. To be honest, all this new building will do a lot to drive up the cost of living, which certainly impacts the creative community in a harmful way.
Contact Info:
- Website: hideoutinthesun.com
Image Credit:
Bryan Karl Lathrop
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