How a Music Director Shapes the Biggest Live TV Moments w/ Ray Chew

28:56Yeah. But I'm already ready for it. Yeah. So I prepare for it. You know, a couple of weeks, like, you know, this August, I kind of, you know, I slept a lot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Bank it up. Yeah. Yeah. I built up. You know, I'm ready to go. I know what to expect. And so, you know, the hours and all it takes to prepare. I know you're competent across all genres and you have to be for this kind of a job. But are there any genres that give you a little bit more trouble than others? Things that you're just not quite as familiar with? No, because my background included it all. I had some years growing up, you know, R &B, classical, Nashville, rock.

29:35I really had live experiences with legendary artists in all the genres. Now, you know, they say, you know, master of none. Okay. For me, that's out the window. It doesn't matter. it doesn't matter what genre it matters what attention you pay to it or and can you really internalize what that's about so when i'm you know if we're playing some a country song i actually become that i'm you know i feel exactly that the matter of fact the dolly parton's coming up that song's coming up somewhere and you know i'm i'm right there I love their music. I've actually had time with Willie Nelson. Okay, then we go to the old school rock and roll where I played with legends of rock and roll.

30:26Okay, cool. Then we go to Big Ben where I've done that. Then we go to dance music. Wow, that's incredible. I imagine this isn't you, but how are the songs licensed for this show if it's such a quick turnaround? Yeah, well, there's a music supervisor, Nancy Severinsen. Nancy and her team, their job is to go through the big barrel of songs that may be available, you know, to the dancers to clear. So music clearance is a big deal because to clear one song may have, it could have two writers, it could have seven publishers. you got to contact everybody and everybody's not waiting around on their phone to be in contact they may you know so it so some of the music clearances happen right up until last minute or we may get a note and say can't use that song because it's not cleared or it's not cleared in the manner that you want to use it oh wow so music clearance could be specific the artist and the it It could be the writer.

31:36Yeah. It could be the record company. So you have to clear a master. You have to clear with the record company. Then you have to clear with the publisher and the writers. Writers, and it could be many publishers and writers. Okay. And at the end of the day, they could say, well, you know, you could use the song, but you can't do anything else with it. You have to play it exactly the way it was. All right. And meanwhile, you've already been arranging a totally different thing. Exactly. And that doesn't work for us. because we need to be able to modify it for dance. So let's say, well, you can't just do the song.

32:12Or you can only do this, or you can only do that. Man, do you remember any instances where that happened? Yeah, that happens, well, frequently enough. We'll get a note back and say, hey, that song hasn't been cleared. We need you to do your own version of that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well, is it ever, like you're kind of talking about like a pool of songs. I know some of the performances are themed nights. I know you did a Wicked night. So I think those are probably a little bit safer because you've probably already been working with Wicked to be like, okay, we're going to do this tie-in. Safer?

32:46Did you say safer? I don't know. I don't know. No. Is it not? There's nothing safe about it, especially Wicked night. So let me give you an idea of Wicked night. Okay, tell me. Wicked Night, we actually had to have weeks and weeks of meetings about Wicked Night because they were so very protective of their product. So the whole night is Wicked Song. So they want to know exactly what we were going to do with every song, you know, and understandably, it's a great product. you know so the and then we put together this this medley for the overture you know which which opened the show with you know i think it was about six or seven wicked songs and and so i had to present that to them in the likeness that it was going to be so i had to assemble you know the band together before and say listen we got to record this out so they can hear it you know actually started with me i had to kind of do my thing on a computer but that's not enough it's got a sound exactly so okay let's say you know i started out with my my my first thing i'll call that v1 all right that's ray working it out it takes that's it takes me oh that was at like almost two weeks just doing that you know trying to you're trying to edit and make sure all the transitions are right okay and then the next stop was that again that was nice right well can you do this can do that cool all right v2 all right dude v3 oh can you change the v4 we got up to about v21 on that on the uh opening uh okay so safer wasn't the right word nothing safe about that that is crazy i mean it makes sense you know i understand people are very protective of their work especially when like covers are involved and people are making new arrangements so I understand that but I do want to take it back to your early days if I recall correctly in my research I found that you started off by being a session musician in New York with like Diana Ross and Paul Simon and all of these greats of their day and I wonder for a young Ray Chu if you learned any valuable lessons from watching some of those legends in the studio is there anything specific that you remember everything that i've learned as a as a young musician especially being a session musician so uh i was a one of the first call they had different first calls because you had especially during that time you had different units so i was the first call musician amongst other first call musicians but still it was a small crop of people yeah what does first call mean for those who don't well first mean if you have a company and you say hey listen, I like, you know, there was a jingle company and you're doing, you're, you're cooking every, you got the Coke account.

35:36You got this guy, you got McDonald's and I need to call on these guys. So I'm going to call with this, this, I'll put the calls in and we need to, we're moving fast. We got the thing tomorrow. Who's the first call? Rachel, blah, blah, blah, boom, blah, boom. And it winds up being. And so before I got into that circle, I had never done a jingle. I went from zero to a hundred when I started doing them. I was like, wow what happened and what happened for me was uh nick ashley and valerie simpson who the great songwriters for motown valerie was was a leading jingle singer during her time she sang she was like one of the number one jingle singers right people didn't know that but you would hear her voice right she brought me into that scene all right and broke that that that wall for me got me through that door access and i went from never having done jingle to doing like three or four every day right nine i got a nine o 'clock and then i got a 12 o 'clock at three o 'clock and i was like wow what's going on then it just started continuing so that scene uh was really bustling it gave me a lot of uh information about the necessity to be have all your tools ready and prepared and ready to go at every time because you know first of all you know they put the music up and just have to be able to sight read well so you have to be able to and now you have to sight read well you have to be able to play well you have to be able to and you have to be quick and you have to not only be able to do all those things but you recording in the studio is different from play live you can get you know a couple little you know flubby things that you know people may not notice live you're gonna hear that in the studio and and and so you're amongst other really and so the the studio musician became a really you know top-notch you know cool guys you know there's a lot of times that we see the same people and that really prepared me for all of the you know working with a lot of the artists like i said diane ross and everybody you know all these people like that and and and their expectations yeah so they expect their music to always be as great as they are and so and i've been wonderfully my experiences but i've been entrusted with the music people like alicia keys and diana ross and the even legendary donnie hathways and people like that have entrusted me with their music yeah i mean it's it sounds like you've probably worked with Alicia Keys quite a few times.

38:13Can you tell me just a story about working with her? She's just wonderful. I have a lot of great stories about Alicia, and I could probably do a whole segment on that, but one of them are when we first encountered Alicia. She was just signed to J Records, and she had just left a bad experience in Columbia. So she wanted, this was her first opportunity to really own her own production and like do it, get in there and do it. And I got a call from Peter Edge and they just formulated J Records. And they said, hey, we got a new artist. I want you to go down to the studio. We need some, you know, some musicians and singers for us.

38:54So I go down there and, hey, she's just a new artist. I don't know, you know, and she says, hey. And so I go in there, I go to do it. And she is cooking. She's like, you know, she is cooking, man. And she's like, no nonsense. I'm like, okay. I like you, new artist. What's your name again? It's Alicia. Let's go. I was like, okay. And so that started a really great ride for us because the next stop for us was that as a new artist, she still needed to be showcased and she needed to be presented to the industry. And so the first thought with that was that we had to do a artist showcase in front of Clive and 50 of his closest people.

39:41And so with that, you had, you know, we had to prepare. So we went in the studio. And so the great story I have about it is her work ethic. And I have a great work ethic because I loved hours of practice. And I actually loved it. I love the repetition, building up and improving, you know, notch by notch and increment by increment. I love that. And so I know how to do that. I know how to do five hours at one thing. I could do that and be fine with that, right? And she could do that too. And I saw that. And so when people see like-minded, people see each other, I see you. So I saw her work ethic.

40:23I love that. I heard a quote recently that was, the work is the reward. And I really liked that because it's truly like, you know, if you're so focused on the destination of it all, you're never totally going to be satisfied. You have to be satisfied with the work itself. Yeah, the journey. Yeah. That's right. You have to be the journey has got to be something that you are prepared for during any journey. You have to be prepared for dips, valleys, you know, unexpected potholes, things that happened along the way. You got to keep moving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did you have any valleys in your career?

40:57Yeah. Yes, I did. I had many. And I had many where I had to question my own tenacity and commitment. You know, like, you know, do I? And I knew I had all the tools because I started very early. I started at age five. And so this is, you know, I was built for this. Right. But there have been moments where I was like, man, what's going on? And I had to like, let me dig down deep because I'm not doing anything else. I'm not looking at another career. There's only one way I'm going with this. I heard you say once that basically music comes to you while you're sleeping sometimes. And you have to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night to write it all down so you don't forget it.

41:51And that reminded me a lot of something that Michael Jackson once said about how music comes to him or came to him sometimes in his sleep and he would have to write it down. Otherwise, he was afraid it would go to Prince. And I wondered if you resonated with that, if you had that kind of feeling about music flowing, of being kind of a vessel for the song that comes to you. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? I hear music all the time. I hear music even while we're there. So you'll see my foot going like that. So we're talking, but I'm actually doing something. And sometimes it's an underscore, it's a backdrop, because I'm paying attention as a competition.

42:31But I hear music all the time. And our music, it's a wonderful gift. All right, thank you. Thank you, God, that you've gifted me with the soundtrack of my journey and my life. You've given me that. You've given me special gem songs. And he's also, and I totally relate to what Michael Jackson said, you know, because there'll be times where, you know, I'm somewhere and I'm hearing this, oh man, I'm hearing a symphony. And I'm like, wow, I need to, you know, I need to kind of document that. And if I don't do a voice, you know, a voice note or something, it does, it goes away. Because I'm like, oh, I'll get it later on.

43:12Later on, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not the same. And it's travel. So music travels. It visits us as artists. It visits. It's a wonderful thing that, you know, frequencies that meet together and they'll come to you and you'll hear, ooh, the beat and the sound. Great. Let me capture that and do something with it. Or it goes. It goes. It moves away. And that happened to me at 3 in the morning. And so I've learned to, like, honor that because I'll be in a cold sleep, and I'm hearing the whole thing. I'm hearing the violins and all this. I'm hearing all this wonderful stuff. And then I'm like, and while I'm sleeping, I'm, you know, the whole thing is I'm like, and then I'm almost telling myself, man, we got to get up.

44:07We got to get up. And I'm like, get up. So I get up. I go down to my studio, and I start working. And so sometimes I'll start working at, you know, four in the morning. And then before I know it, like I said, I could do this. And I do it all day. It'll be like, you know, 12 noon. And my wife will say, you been down here all night? And I'm like, yeah. You know, that's what I do. And in one case, it was, you know, the Night of Inspiration. It's a wonderful event that we do at Carnegie Hall. I conduct a 64-piece orchestra and 150 mass choir. and we bring genres and people together for this great, wonderful night.

44:48And so one occurrence was I needed a composition. And I was kind of having, you know, a little wall because while I'm awake and just doing everything, I'm like trying to figure out how do I, you know, and trying to just put this together. And after I did something, a couple of little drafts, I was like, eh, I kind of like it. I don't love it. You know, and so as an artist, you know, you you got to love it. Hopefully. All right. You can you still might do it. But, you know, and I wasn't in love yet. And then the one that I heard, it was at three in the morning. And that's the one I'm like, oh, I'm loving this.

45:29Let me get to it. And that's man. Man, I love that. I know that one of your musical heroes has been Quincy Jones. And you did get to work with him at some point, right? Yes, I did. Okay. And I mean, sometimes they say don't meet your heroes, but I'm wondering what the experience was like when you met one of your heroes. Well, Valerie Simpson introduced me to Quincy Jones. Now, Quincy Jones, I had been studying Quincy Jones' music for many years. My father had all of his big band and jazz albums. My father was a musician as well. so he would he played piano and i played piano and i played multiple instruments and sometimes it'll be drums and vibes so we we had those we had our instruments in our basement and so we would put the records on and i would just study up all the parts and so i knew quincy joan before i met quincy joan i knew so when i finally met him you know i was like okay you know and it wasn't it It was less of a, wow, you know, it was more of, yes, we, you know, we're supposed to, you know, finally that day came where we met, and there we are, and it was great.

46:44And he provided so much. First of all, he was affable, he was funny, and he had a story about everything. And he would share those things. He had the Quincy nuggets, the Quincy-isms. And so I was just drinking all that in. and over the years it was great just great yeah well when did you meet him what was the occasion I was at 19 years old and uh he was in New York working on the Wiz okay the movie The Wiz with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross yeah and I was at Nick Ashford and Valerie's house and I think he was either staying there they had a you know it's wonderful brownstone on the Upper West Side and uh And so, you know, she told her, come on down and meet Quincy.

47:33I was like, yes. So I met him, and then we're hanging out. And they were hanging out, but I'm just, like, drinking it all in, happy to be there. And he says, well, I'm going down to Brooklyn, you know, because that's where they were doing parts of the Wiz, you know. And so I said, could I hang out? He said, yeah. So now I'm with him, you know, hanging out with him all day. And I'm like, this is great. You know, there you go. Wow. That's so great. I mean, you've gotten to see so many artists throughout their careers, throughout the decades. And I'm wondering what separates the artists, in your opinion, that kind of come and go versus the artists that stick around with us for decades?

48:12The commitment to your craft. All right. You could have talent. Talent sometimes can be an overrated commodity. All right. it's a wonderful thing to have, but your commitment to the craft is what's going to carry you on those days where the talent doesn't. The talent is, oh, I can sing, I can sing. Well, what happens when you kind of get, you know, you're hitting that wall? Well, you better pull out, you know, your craft tool. And so the tools are what, you know, what I focus on, all right? I focus on making sure that the preparation, you know, all of that, these things meet each other. They all have to come together.

48:58And they all have to be, you know, commitment to excellence. You have to set the bar for what excellence is. So if you think, whoever your heroes are, and you think they're great, well, and I do have, we have a program called Power to Inspire. inspire that we speak we have uh young people that we bring into the industry they want to know how to be a music director they want to know how to be a music executive my wife vivian scott chu was an executive and while i was a musician it was us and them i love anyway we came together perfect marriage and so yeah right we have this foundation power to inspire where we teach young people how to do that.

49:39So one of the things I teach them is that if you have somebody that you think is great, and they all do, oh, if they're a singer, I think this person is great. They're a musician, oh, okay, okay. So how far are you from there? How far are you from that greatness? What's that gap? Well, that's the gap you got to cover. all right you know you should you be satisfied with that you know with anything less or at least aspiring because along the way you don't have to be that but you could be your own level of greatness you can get to that all right and you can work at that and you can push and you can let it land where it is but not because a lack of effort interesting yeah i've also been thinking a lot about you know artist development and you know uh given this is a music industry podcast I've spoken to quite a few folks at record labels and about like what kind of talent they're looking for now.

50:41And you've been in the game watching top stars be made for decades now. And I'm wondering if the type of artists that reach the top have changed. And I'll give like a little example. I saw this funny TikTok where someone was talking about how, like, do you really think that Kurt Cobain would have been making TikToks? Like, you know, have we started valuing different things when we're trying to discover new artists? The advent of the social media type of artist has really impacted what is presented to the public. So what is presented to the public is what, you know, the powers are feeding them.

51:27And if you're feeding your children McDonald's, then McDonald's is what they know. If you're feeding them every day, then that's what we... And yes, there's a place for McDonald's, and lots of times they're tasty and they taste good. Every now and then I'll eat McDonald's. So it just depends. But I think there's a lot of variety in terms of what people consume and what their appetites kind of evolve to. And so I think that, and funny enough, and I will say maybe ironically enough, I think that there's a younger audience that is now, They're like, we've had enough McDonald's. Can I get, you know, what's a real?

52:18And when they get a, that's what a real meal tastes like. And then there's a level. That's a real meal. Now, how about this? This is, you know, Michelin level of, what's that? Right. How about if you get to try that one day? You know, you'd be like, whoa. Well, okay. So I was looking over your resume. It feels like pretty much everything in terms of live music for live TV. But one of the one things I didn't see on there was a Super Bowl halftime performance. And I'm just curious, from an MD's perspective, if you're ever given a gig like that, what are immediately the biggest challenges that you see in doing a performance like that?

53:04I'm familiar with what they have to do to prepare for it. and so yeah the challenges are kind of the same you know when you're dealing with a tv production and so i've uh i've also done you know shows like you know uh miss universe and blah blah blah and in a tv production you know you know the the you have to measure the time so it's time management first that's the first thing all right and a manager of people and and and you know whatever your tools are, whatever your team is. As a music director, you have to manage that team and get the team to, we all have to get to the finish line. And in the sports analogy, I teach my teams that we are in the sports analogy as baseball, we're in the home run business.

53:54They all have to go, when I hit the line drives, they all have to go over the fence. Football, they all have to be touchdowns. Everything we do has to be a touchdown for where I sit. And so the Super Bowl, you know, you're in one of the biggest events of the year. And so everything has to be, you know, you have weeks to prepare and make sure all of the, you know, attributes of the artists are satisfied, you know, the production. Your job as a music director is sometimes I have to be a massage therapist, I have to be Switzerland in the meetings. You know, my opinion may vary from that of the executive producer, but certainly we're going to be aligned by the end of this meeting.

54:42I'm sure there's a lot of your job in making all the musicians that you're working with feel comfortable and calm and like, we're good. We got this all under control. Yeah. So do you feel like you're kind of a therapist sometimes? Absolutely. You know, I think you have to, again, manage when you're managing people, you have to look at who they are. Everybody doesn't respond the same way. Now, early in my music director career, I kind of had the hammer down approach, you know, and, you know, we're going to do this, you know, we're going to march, march, march. And, you know, you're going to, when I say jump, you know, that kind of stuff.

55:18Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And then I saw that it didn't always work with everybody. One of the books I always refer to is The Art of War. And one of the things that it does say is that any failure of the team is a reflection of, is because of the commander. Interesting. That's right. It says that in there. If there's a, you know, if there's a failure communication, it's the commander. And so I take that to heart because, you know, when I, so if I see something that is less than what I want to be, I take the responsibility of, you know what? But maybe I didn't communicate this properly. What did I not do?

56:00How could I improve myself? How could I improve this moment? Yeah. Well, Ray, are you ready for some games? Yeah. Okay. Let's go. Let's do some games. Okay. All right. So this is our Spin the Record game. Spin the Record. Yes, just a vinyl record with a bunch of questions on it. All of them are fun. I'll have you spin it a few times. Okay. So give it a spin, and I'll read it out to you. What's your biggest musical pet peeve? One thing is about honoring time. There's only one today. Tomorrow's a different day. And next week's a different day. Maybe Wednesday, but it's a different day. And so knowing this will never happen again, you know, and people sometimes they look past the moment.

56:44They don't stay in the moment. So that's one of the things that when I see people, and you said pet peeves, I'm like, hey, man, wait a second. Stay in the moment. Really enjoy this. If you're doing something great musical, enjoy this. Make sure we can all get it. Good answer. Okay, spin the record again. Let's see what we get. All right. What is your favorite song performed on Dancing with the Stars? My favorite song, I won't say favorite, but I'll say one of the greatest nights that I really enjoyed was Wicked Night. That was. I enjoyed every month. We performed every song on Wicked. And if you watch the show, from time to time, they'll use a master for different reasons, like clearance.

57:29The artist may say, hey, you can't use my song. But in this case, we worked with their team. And so every song that we did on Wicked, and so that was my favorite night, just because I loved all of the musical journey that we had to do to get to there. And when we got to that night, it was great. That's incredible. Okay, we will move on to our final game of the day. So this is what we call, What Would You Cue? I'm going to read out some prompts, and you just give me one song that comes to mind that would kind of fit this, that you would cue up. Let me, I have to get into my. People take this one so seriously.

58:10I always think it's like a fun game, but people are like, oh. I have to kind of give out my playlist. Because a lot of times I'll share with you, and you know, that I have two types of listens. One is passive, where I'm just like, you know, letting it go and hearing it as it goes. And then other is very attentive, where I'm listening purposefully. I do more of that. So when I'm listening to stuff, it's because somebody will say, hey, listen to this. And I may forget the title or whatever, but I'm listening because I need to hear all of the songs that we do on Dance With Stars. Most of the titles, I might forget the titles.

58:46Somebody, what's the name of that song? But I know every element in there because I have to study it up. Yeah, well, okay. We'll see what you can recall. You might get me on this one. You can sing a little, hum a little if you need. Okay, what would you cue to take you back to your childhood? Oh, Aretha Franklin's, you know, like, yeah. Any particular Aretha Franklin's? Natural Woman. Natural Woman. Yeah. Can't go wrong. Okay. What would you cue to represent your favorite era of music? Well, I don't have a favorite era of music, but I do have some that kind of touch home. And, ooh, that was one.

59:20Did I say home? All right. So that was from The Wiz and Stephanie Mills. And then that song just speaks through generations. I love that. What would you cue to remember the best concert you've ever been to? Wow. One of the best concerts I've ever been to was, wow, it was a fusion concert with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Yom Hammer. Don't get me started. They were just, as a musician, that was like Nirvana. Wow, incredible. Okay, what would you cue to get yourself hyped up for a live TV performance? Well, one of the things that I do is I kind of go into my personal cave.

1:00:08And I can create a cave anywhere, by the way. I'm totally capable. I can go right in that corner and shut everything out and get all of my, line up everything I need to do and everything I need to speak to, everything, you know, get all my notes together, open the door, and I do go. I do that at Carnegie Hall. There's a lot going on. Everybody's on. everybody wants to do everybody's and i and right and i'm i'm standing right backstage with all the stuff going i just cue everybody out um i'm ready to get on my notes and now when i hear my name they say raychu shoot out like a cannon okay so it's kind of more of a like i need to be quiet and contemplative by myself more so than a song particularly oh yeah yeah yeah well the preparations of the songs you should have that already that's that's that should be ready to go yeah if i'm still thinking about this song i think i'm a step behind good point good point okay and finally what would you cue for the dancing with the stars series finale opening number the series finale opening number should be something from ray's album yeah okay and and and i'll have to speak on because i really love what she did as an artist yeah what she did as an artist i hope i hope that resonates throughout the industry she broke all the rules all right they said well you can't put that many songs on album i think she had 20 songs on now you can't do that well she did oh oh you you can't do well nobody wants to hear you narrate the album.

1:01:50She narrated throughout the entire nobody wants to hear interludes. She's got interludes on there. Nobody wants to hear songs over you know, none of the songs can be more than three or four minutes. She's got songs that are six minutes. She's got a song. And then, you know, nobody wants to hear credits. She did such a wonderful thing. At the end of the, I listened to the album several times. At the end, she has an orchestra. She named every person of the orchestra. She named everybody who contributed, everybody behind the scenes, every manager, every agent, every... And it was such a wonderful, wonderful thing she did.

1:02:32One day I'm going to meet and just give a hug. It's incredible. Okay, so you haven't met her? I have not met her. Okay, well, there's a photo of her right behind you, actually. Oh, really? Hey! That was not planned, obviously. Ray, I love you, Ray. What if we were like, and Ray's here? Yes, yes. Exactly. I hope you're watching this, Ray. Yes, Ray and Ray. Come see me. I would love that. I'll come see you. Well, Ray Chu, thank you so much for coming to On the Record. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you so much to Ray Chu for joining me to talk about his work as a music director. And thank you for listening to this week's episode of On the Record.

1:03:06If you liked today's show, give us a follow on Instagram or on our TikTok page, at Billboard On the Record, where you can find new clips of this show every single week. We'd also appreciate it if you rated our show on your favorite podcast platform. All these things help On The Record grow bigger and better than ever. I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the music business. I'll see you then.