Fred Cannon – The Man Behind the Creatives

Rose Drake and Fred Cannon of Creative and Dreams have got to be two of our favorite people in the whole bloomin’ business. While I was working up an interview for Fred, Rose took the reigns in hand and delivered up a story that I can’t improve upon, so in it’s entirety, here it is…

Meet Fred Cannon!

In the Creative and Dreams Music Network family, he is known as the “music man.” The name suits Fred Cannon well. Cannon was born in Mississippi, one of the most musically rich places in the world, and was raised in Europe, where he got his start in the music industry in the 1960s. From a very young age, he went out on the road in Europe and worked with bands that would become well known in later years.

After Cannon received his associate’s degree in political science and government from the University of Maryland – Munich, Germany and his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Whittier College in California, he returned to Europe to launch his music career. He held senior management positions with EMI Records in Italy and England, where he worked with such superstars as Paul McCartney, Queen, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Suzi Quatro and Michael Jackson. He served as the managing director of The Voice of the Daily American in Rome, Italy, where he was also a popular radio personality. From 1979 to 1988, he worked as managing director and CEO of Carrere Records in the UK, signing such international acts as Saxon, Phyllis Nelson, Dokken, The Buggles and Rose Tattoo, and assisting with the production of many hit records. From 1988 to 1992, he served as the international director of the British record and music publishing company, PWL, which charted more than 100 top 40 hits and 16 number ones. During this period, he worked closely with artists such as Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and Donna Summer.

In 1994, Cannon joined New York-based BMI as a consultant and was soon named legislative liaison before being promoted to vice president of government relations in 1996. From 2002 to 2012 he served as BMI’s senior vice president of government relations, where he was responsible for coordinating and overseeing BMI’s legislative efforts in conjunction with all departments, as well as with the company’s lobbying firms in Washington, DC and across the country. Also during his tenure at BMI, Cannon served as a board member for 12 different organizations including the Recording Academy’s Washington, DC Chapter (president from 2006 to 2008), the Songwriters Association of Washington (co-vice president) and the Copyright Alliance.

While he will always be an advocate for songwriters, composers and music publishers, Cannon often wished he could reconnect with the music itself. He achieved this dream in 2012, when he joined the brand-new Creative and Dreams Music Network as its CEO. In this role, he oversees Creative and Dreams’ roster of emerging talent and established artists, and provides support to each artist as a music producer, songwriter, marketing and promotion consultant, A&R expert and mentor – a true music man.

His first trip into the studio in more than 20 years came when he discovered folk/roots/soul/gospel artist Chastity Brown in a nightclub in New York in 2012. Chastity recalls the experience. “He approached me and said ‘Wow, I really like your music.’ He gave me some really kind compliments, but my first impression – because Fred is a suit-wearing man – was like, ‘The suit – nope!’ But I went home and checked out Fred, the different things he’d been involved in and his musical history, and I was like ‘Holy crap, this guy was not bs-ing!’ So I send him an email, and he emailed me back in 20 minutes.”

Chastity met with Fred that same night, and they talked for three hours, sharing about their lives and love of music. From there, Cannon connected her with his friend Rose Drake of Creative and Dreams Music Network who offered her a chance to record a single song. From that song came studio sessions and a full record deal. Chastity’s album, which features Cannon as executive producer and co-producer and Paul Buono as producer, was recorded at the Helsinki South studios in Nashville. Cannon isn’t the only one who returned to his roots during the recording process. Brown, who was raised in Tennessee before moving to Minneapolis, reconnected with her Southern heritage throughout her time in Nashville.

“The funny/beautiful thing is that meeting Paul and Rose and coming down South to record really solidified my roots. Being raised there [Tennessee] – my father is from North Carolina – I for sure have the South running through my blood and have a very love-hate relationship with it. Once I met Paul and Rose, it just kind of set it up for us to make this record together,” Brown said.

The album, Back-Road Highways, features heavyweight studio musicians such as bass player Anton Nesbit (Mavis Staples and BeBe & CeCe Winans) and organist Blair Masters (Garth Brooks), as well as guitarist Robert Mulrennan of No Bird Sing, who plays with Chastity in her live band.

Of her album’s production team, Brown said, “Paul has a wild imagination and a great ear for song arrangement, and Fred brought a wisdom and foresight that really pushed me to my best.”

Since its debut, Back-Road Highways has been burning up the music charts and deeply resonating with music critics and fans alike. It opens with the slow, pulsing insistence of “House Been Burnin,” a cry out for our needs, followed by the rocking blues of “When We Get There” and the plaintive, moving roots of “Solely.” Chastity turns it all around and brings out the joys and sorrows of love with the enormous, pleading, “Say It,” balanced with the sweetly ecstatic “After You.” Throughout Back-Road Highways, Chastity sings it all out, giving her listeners a reason to keep on going one more day.

Penny Black Music said of the album, “Forget the genre hopping; Brown has produced the soul album of the year, simple as that.” The UK’sIndependent described Chastity as “…a rarity, an R&B singer not in thrall to the diva delusion. With her folk-blues style, languid slide guitar and a ghostly burr of organ underscore “House Been Burnin,” while fellowship for the foreclosed and abandoned in “When We Get There” is evoked in Dylanesque harmonica and how her voice cracks on the highest notes. Songs of return and redemption predominate.” Shakenstir called Chastity “…one of the best and most distinctive voices I’ve heard in years…Throughout this record Brown’s songwriting is triumphant, with vocals and instrumental arrangements that can only be described as extraordinary. This is without doubt one of the year’s best and most interesting releases, and I cannot wait to witness a live performance.”

This month, Brown traveled across the Atlantic for her first European tour. The tour marks an important milestone for Cannon, who left that world for the U.S. in 1992. Now, for the first time in more than two decades, one of his protégées is selling out gigs across the UK and an album with his name on it is flying off the store shelves. Back-Road Highways has been a memorable ride for both Brown and Cannon, and this is one leg of the journey they won’t soon forget.

To read Fred Cannon’s complete bio, click here.
To read Paul Buono’s complete bio, click here.
To read Chastity Brown’s complete bio, click here.