Key Songs In The Life Of… Alan Price

MBW’s Key Songs In The Life Of… is a series in which we ask influential music industry figures about the tracks that have defined their life and career so far. This time out Vevo CEO Alan Price picks the songs that have meant the most to him on his journey to date. The Key Songs… series is supported by Sony Music Publishing.

Vevo CEO Alan Price says that he took a ‘loose, fluid and organic’ approach to selecting his Key Songs – and there’s evidence of that in the music.

From The Grateful Dead to Sonny Landreth, there are some real jam-merchants in the mix – artists who play in the moment and go where the music takes them. Perhaps most significantly, there are several live tracks, or at least tracks that were chosen having been most appreciated in a live setting.

Price says: “As I went through the process, I kept going back to shows. As a result, these aren’t just the most impactful songs of my life, they are key to my most impactful music experiences.

“They’re all artists and tracks that I’m incredibly passionate about, of course, but by no means would this be the result if I very methodically tried to rank my Top 10 songs of all time. That would be a very different list.

“I found that this effort brought me to songs that tie me to people – family and friends, places and lasting memories. These are common threads that presented themselves as I went through the process.”

Price has been at Vevo since 2009. Before that he spent nearly two decades within the Sony Music eco system, including stints at both Epic and Columbia – meaning he worked with a star-studded list of incredible artists.

He hasn’t, however, tied his Key Songs too closely to his career. “I didn’t really want any framework or rules, but just to see what flowed. I didn’t discuss it with anyone or ask anyone how they’d go about it. I just thought about it and waited to see what would appear.”

Most simply, he’s approached it as a fan. Something that’s reflected in his answer when asked if he found the task difficult. “Not at all! I don’t even think about it on an easy-to-difficult scale, it’s organic and natural – I think about this stuff all the time anyway!”

1) Grateful Dead, One More Saturday Night (1972)

According to strict definitions, I’m not a Deadhead. I say that because I tend to like studio-Dead rather that live-Dead, and I think that technically eliminates me from the community. Nonetheless, this is where it all started for me.

I’m the youngest of four children and as is the case with so many music fans, my family was an early source of inspiration and lasting influence on my musical palette. My oldest brother was a drummer, and he had a kit in his bedroom on the third floor. He would put on his headphones and play – loudly. From downstairs I would hear Sweet Home Alabama on a regular basis, but mostly it was The Grateful Dead.

This particular song is what stands out in my memory. Why is it that specific song? I can’t explain it, it’s just organic. To this day some melodies or riffs just stick with me. And this is not just one of my earliest musical memories, it’s one of my earliest memories of any kind – it’s always stuck with me.

I have come to have more of an appreciation for the Dead over time. I’m spending a lot of time with the seminal live performance from Barton Hall at Cornell University [from Cornell 5/8/77], which is understood to be one of their highest-quality live recordings. Maybe I will be part of the community after all.

2) The Band, The Weight (1978)

This is quite possibly a perfect song. The original version on the Big Pink album is classic, but the version on The Last Waltz, not the concert version, but the recorded version with the Staples Singers – that’s the standout performance.

This song has been a constant throughout my adult years and bonds me to some important people in my life. During my college years, every single time we would return home after a night out, we would play The Last Waltz movie.

That film is as much about the stories that The Band tell as much as it about the performances – and the performances are amazing. My friends and I knew every word, not just to the songs, but to all those stories. It was and is the soundtrack to our friendship.

Fast forward a number of years, when planning our wedding, my now-wife Rachele and I were deciding on our wedding song, and all of a sudden it just hit us, ‘Why are we even thinking about it? It’s The Weight.’

3) Bonnie Raitt with John Prine, Angel from Montgomery (Live Version) (1985)

This is an interesting one for me, with an experiential element, and an attachment to a historical inflection point.

I’ve always been a Bonnie fan. I’m really interested in guitar playing, and she is a unique slide guitar player. Earlier in her career that’s first and foremost what she was known for. Years ago, for a woman to play guitar and be up front like that was really something. And I think she was under-appreciated as a guitarist until she broke through.

Bonnie ‘s recordings are often amazing interpretations of other people’s compositions. She loved John Prine’s songwriting, and she was close with him personally. She wrote a beautiful arrangement of this song.

So, I had loved the song for many years. Then in February 2020, I was in London with my wife. We take the train to Paris for a few days, and then fly home to the States. Looking back, it was as if from the time we took off to when we landed, the world had changed due to the pandemic.

Not long after our trip, John Prine passed away from COVID, which it turns out he probably contracted in Paris, where we had been at around the same time.

Like Paris, New Orleans was also an early epicenter of COVID – and we were in New Orleans not long after our Paris trip to bring our sons home from university. Somehow, we didn’t fall ill after time spent in those two amazing cities.

4) Blackfoot, Road Fever (Live Version) (1982)

We’re going to shift gears here. We’re going heavy, and we’re going to a band that did have a bit of a following in the UK, and the live album this comes from [Highway Song Live] was recorded in Scotland.

They were a Doug Morris-signed band. Blackfoot were in the Jacksonville, Florida, Lynyrd Skynyrd family tree of bands. And they were the first rock band I ever saw live. This was in my early High School years.

We’ve all had that eye-opening, jaw-dropping experience at some particular show that just opened the floodgates for us. This was that show for me. It was at the Asbury Park Convention Hall on the Jersey Shore. About 1,000 people were standing on these rickety folding chairs, and this band was a locomotive.

But they were never about to go off the rails. They were so in control. It was the loudest, tightest thing my friends and I had ever seen. This song captures the experience. We talk about that show to this day.

5) B.B. King, Better Not Look Down (1979)

This was also meaningful for me from a live perspective. It was at university, the same place where that Grateful Dead show was recorded. I always conceptually understood his importance, particularly as an influential Blues guitar player. But truth be told, I never actually heard it, not on the studio recordings.

Live in Cook County Jail got there, Live at the Regal got there, but I probably was a fan in part because I knew I was supposed to be. Then I see this show. BB is about to be 60 years old, and it was amazing. I got it that night!

First and foremost, his vocals. All the talk is about his specific guitar style. But that night, his energy, the nuance and power of his vocals were like nothing I’d ever seen.

The groove of the big band, and he controlled them as one just by shaking his leg. He had them on a string, just with that. And his playing, it was the total opposite of what I said about his studio recordings. It was loud, it was distorted and it was wildly innovative. This song captures all of that for me.

I remember the moment because of the impact at the time, and because, amazingly, that night I set up a recording back in my room, from the local college radio station, which was broadcasting the show. I’ve since been able to digitize that recording from a very old cassette, so I can literally go back and experience it on demand.

6) Joe Ely, Letter to L.A. (1987)

Joe is a Texas singer/songwriter/troubadour, and he had a really varied career that included relationships with Bruce Springsteen and The Clash [Ely sings backing vocals on Should I Stay Or Should I Go].

This song stands out because Los Angeles is a special place for my wife and I. It started with a classic coastal trip from San Francisco down to Los Angeles. Throughout the drive, my wife and I were listening to Shawn Colvin and Santana – and we listened to lots of Joe Ely. Letter to LA stood out because, of course, that was our destination.

It’s his kind of wistful ode to Los Angeles. The song also stands out to this day because little did we know at the time, but three years later we ended up moving to LA for five years, and now our two sons live there.

It’s also notable to me because there is this unbelievable guitar player named Dave Grissom who really puts his signature on this song.

7) Chris Whitley, Phone Call from Leavenworth (1991)

This is a track from the early nineties off an album called Living with the Law, which was Chris Whitley’s debut record.

To this day, I think it is a timeless album, sound-wise and production-wise. It was produced by Malcolm Burn, at a time when Daniel Lanois was seemingly producing every album, and it was recorded in Daniel’s studio in New Orleans.

This is right around the time that I began my career in the music industry, and it is when music from Seattle was really happening. But then you also had massive pop artists like Celine Dion and Mariah Carey dominating the charts. So you have this wide array of artistry where the labels can add value.

And then at the same time, Columbia sign Chris Whitley, this kind of bluesy singer/songwriter. While he was a major priority for the label, in the end he never broke through. And I think, frankly, he probably struggled a bit with some of the commercialization of his music, as some artists do.

But, as I say, this remains an absolutely timeless record, and one that taught me a lot about the diversity of artists that a major label can be interested in and can have a vision for.

8) Sonny Landreth, Levee Town (2000)

Sonny is from Louisiana, and he has a strong New Orleans connection. And this song (and album), being called Levee Town, is about New Orleans itself.

On a personal level, this is once again about a show, but it’s also about a specific person. My wife and I had a dear friend who lived in Philadelphia – she was a fully signed-up Deadhead.

One time, Sonny Landreth was playing in this interesting small venue and we asked our friend Michelle Rein to join us at the show. Sonny’s very hard to describe. He’s probably the most innovative slide guitar player alive. He’s also an amazing songwriter–and a great singer.

I said all this to our friend, but I clearly hadn’t done him justice even with that build-up, because I remember looking across at her during the show and her jaw had just dropped. It was so great to see such a devoted music fan be blown away like that – by an artist I already loved.

Fast forward, and our friend tragically passed away a few years later. This song now reminds me – and will always remind me – of that night and our dear friend Michelle.