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The Art of Getting Broken

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"And then all of a sudden I'm doing 'Darkness on the Edge of Town,' and what the hell is that about? That's what I grew up on. That's what I played for 12 years before I got here. That's why I picked up a guitar. Without the long view of perspective, there were a lot of people that thought I had kind of wandered off my path. If anything, the foray into country music was the experiment. And it was cool, and I'm glad that I did it, and I learned a bunch, and I made it work for me as a way to make a living. But what I do now, that was the sound in my head when I had my Wilson."

It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy...

"Here's what I believe Mary wants. I believe that Mary wants to play in hockey rinks. She likes big stages, she likes to run around, she likes the connection with people. And the more people she connects with, the more it feeds her. She's a true believer."

This is Holly Gleason speaking. Gleason runs a boutique media and artist-development firm called Joe's Garage out of Nashville. She spent 11 years as a music journalist, jumped the fence to work as a publicist for Sony Nashville in 1991, and started Joe's Garage two years later. Her clients, aside from Mary, include Rodney Crowell, Asleep at the Wheel, Lee Ann Womack, Patty Loveless and Brooks & Dunn.

"I midwife dreams for a living," she says. "And if you look at my clients, I'm not bad at it."

Gleason took Mary on around 1994 on the basis of a demo cassette and began the process of shepherding the country upstart toward a career.

"It was basically that thing of talking about music, and talking about why you do it, and talking about how hard it is, and talking about what to expect, and talking about what's realistic to expect. And Mary didn't know any of that stuff. She had no expectations. She knew that she was living in Texas, she knew that she could work as much as she wanted to, and she knew that she loved to play the guitar. That's what Mary knew."

Gleason heard more, even through the hiss of a cheapo demo tape. She told Mary: "I think you can have hockey rinks. I think you can change lives."

It starts with perception, buzz, heat. Getting the name out. Gleason made her big push in 1997, slipping Mary into a showcase during Nashville's Extravaganza.

It was not, Gleason says, a particularly sexy showcase, but "I know how to get people out," she says. "You get on the phone, you call people up, you pester them, you leverage them, you beg them. Sometimes you just invite them."

When Mary hit the stage, the room was packed with movers. Matraca Berg, author of "Strawberry Wine," among other No. 1 singles, was in the audience. Georgia Satellites guitarist Dan Baird was there. Journalist David Zimmerman from USA Today was watching. A&R reps from CBS and Arista listened, alongside the head of Madonna's publishing company.

"There was anticipation in the room," Gleason remembers, "because people knew that I know. But they weren't prepared for it. Mary got five standing ovations in a 40-minute set. Got an encore in a very strict no-encore scenario." Mary used the encore to debut "Love's to Blame," a song she had co-written with Steve Earle.

"Immediately we get her off the stage and we take her outside and it was like, people were lined up in the street." Arista picked up the dinner tab at one of Nashville's "big industry late-night hangs," and Gleason and Mary headed home, where Gleason prepared to jet off to the Grammy Awards.

"When I got home there were five messages on my answering machine: 'don't sign with anyone until you talk to us,' 'don't sign with anyone until you talk to us,' 'can't make a deal until you talk to us.' I'm changing planes in Cleveland trying to get to the Grammy Awards and it's like six more messages from six different labels."

And a message from Zimmerman at USA Today, asking if Mary could stay over in Nashville for an interview and photo shoot.

"I'm in Cleveland with all my fucking carry-ons, schlepping through the airport trying to write down names on the wall, and I've got Mary blowing up."

My mama told me, you better shop around...

"She and I had been talking for a long time about what the priorities are," Gleason remembers. "What is it you really want out of a record deal. And Mary's deal was, she wants to be broken. Because lots of people get record deals. Lots of people get high-dollar record deals, but it's not necessarily what's going to get you broken."

What will get you broken -- out of the pack, into the limelight -- is the full and wholehearted backing of a major record label. Not just one A&R guy who really loves your music. Not just the prestigious head of a label blowing smoke up your ass. You've got to have all the resources on your side: the sales department, marketing, promotions, publicity, video, everybody. It's a mistake, Gleason says, made by many fledgling artists: They don't think about a record company's "other" departments. "And if you want to be broken, then that's something you need to think about."

Mary and Gleason thought about it long and hard, shopping to a short list of three or four labels, playing showcases, "circuit-riding" through the various offices, meeting everyone, reading who "got" Mary and who didn't, "thumping" labels to gauge their "vibe," to get a sense of who they were and how hard they would work for her, "because it's like a marriage, you're in it for at least ten years if you're successful."

"There was always one or two really big disconnects at the different labels," Gleason says. "Just, you know, the vibe wasn't right. I know that sounds really nonspecific, but having worked at a record company, I think if you don't connect with people in departments, they don't get you, they don't know how to work for you."

One suitor, for instance, thought he could move maybe 100,000 copies of a Mary Cutrufello CD. "Pfft," says Gleason. "They were out."

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