This week on Thinkin’ and Drinkin’ Bart talks with Neal Spielberg. Neal talks about breaking into the business side of music through an uncle that was a big mentor in his life. Getting his feet wet in the sales side of radio, spinning that into a gig promoting a three ring circus, and selling home movies wholesale for video stores. After he transitioned into working for Atari, then a job at Warner Brothers Nashville.
Meet Neal Spielberg: A passion for music and family entertainment from a very early age led the way to a career in entertainment sales, marketing, and artist management, spanning over 40 years. Spielberg began his career with Feld Entertainment (Ringling Bros Circus), then WEA Distribution and Warner Bros Records (Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Jeff Foxworthy, Hank Williams Jr, Faith Hill, Take 6). He then began Spielberg Consulting in 2003 working with several independent record labels and artists including Merle Haggard, Clint Black, Little Big Town, Neal McCoy, and now Spielberg Entertainment manages several artists, including country music artists Blane Howard, Bluegrass/Folk artist Nefesh Mountain, Comedian Byron Kennedy, Jam Band Perpetual Groove, Caribbean music duo Hi Tide, Americana artist Tracy Nelson, and Christian Music artist Ben Fuller.
Neal is a proud member of the CMA, ACM, AMA, and IBMA, The Recording Academy, Leadership Music board member (class of ‘95), and Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, Az) Ambassador.
He and his wife Tina live in Nashville and they have children, Chana and David.
What Bart has to say: Neal has always been such a sweet guy, a give you the shirt off his back kind of guy. He’s always loved music and creative people. He’s outlasted most people in the music industry and someone I call a friend.
In this episode, you’ll hear
Neal is the only guy that I’ve ever known that’s been in a real 3 ring circus with Bengal tigers.
Neal shared Jim Ed Norman’s (former President of Warner Brothers Nashville) philosophy at Warner Brothers, which was ‘let’s sign great artists, then we’ll find an audience for them.’
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