Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood interviewed

Clapton and Winwood are currently touring in America. In the Studio has an interview with them (with more to come, apparently) by one Redbeard.

Redbeard: How has the music business changed since you first released Blind Faith with Eric Clapton forty years ago?

Steve Winwood: Well you see in the old days, the heads of record companies used to be mavericks kind of. They didn’t have to please stockholders. They were mavericks. The deals weren’t good, but... they would take chances with records. They were music lovers they would listen to music and they would take chances... They were kind of like venture capitalists. And they were usually playboy types or eccentrics.

So, I mean, though, now as record companies are slowly devouring each other and becoming one or two or three, big ones. They can no longer afford to be mavericks. It’s too dangerous. They’ve got stockholders and shareholders to satisfy. And so, I think that’s affecting to a certain degree, to what degree I’m not quite sure, but certainly to some degree it is affecting the music that is coming out. I think there is no doubt about that.

There is a lot of other interesting material on the site too.