How Tech and COVID Altered Sam Glaser’s Musical World

As a popular and well-traveled performer in the world of Jewish music, Sam Glaser’s career was sailing – until two unanticipated disruptions threatened the journey.

Since 1997 Glaser has been performing concerts in 50 cities a year in the U.S. and around the world. Producing albums and videos, whether singing or at the piano, he has been thrilling audiences, and the feeling was mutual.

Then Big Tech struck, closely followed by the COVID pandemic. These threw him for a loop.

“Essentially,” Glaser said, “since 2020, going places has been challenging. After the streaming services started up — the Apple Musics and Spotifys — the life of a musician pretty much became go live or go home.”

Digital technology has drastically shrunk income.

“The common multiplier,” he said, “is about .003 cents per stream. A thousand new listeners to one of my songs, and supposedly I have made $3.”

Not quite. “That is before other people take their cut.”

Seated at a large console in his fully equipped backyard studio in Pico-Robertson, Glaser was asked about his countering strategy.

“There really is no countering it,” he said. “Essentially, Big Tech came and overwhelmed the industry. It was a better way to get music to consumers. More accessible. Universally adopted. You didn’t even need the MP3 player or an Ipod to load full of songs because the songs are in the ether forever – for free.”

He recalled driving through downtown Los Angeles a day earlier, spotting a sign that read “Apple Music: 100 Million Songs for You.”

With Big Tech’s arrival, “artists pretty much had to go to live music. Then live music became an endangered species during the pandemic.”

With Big Tech’s arrival, “artists pretty much had to go to live music,” he said. “Then live music became an endangered species during the pandemic, although it seems to have come back gangbusters this year.”

An exception, he quickly added, is his arena: “It has not yet come back in my genre in the Jewish world,” Glaser said.

“The pandemic has had a deleterious effect on the financial health of a lot of synagogues around the country, specifically in the Reform and Conservative movements.”

After 33 years of performing, Glaser has learned to adapt.

“My strategy always has been a triumvirate of earning possibilities,” said Glaser, “live, studio and my recordings.

“The pandemic took out live and recordings. Something has to make up for it. So, thank God, I run this room you are sitting in. I spend my days producing albums. I do music for all media: film, TV, books, games and podcasts.

“I am either writing the music or producing the music other people have written and bringing it to fruition.”

He anticipated the question of whether this is a satisfactory substitute for his original form of parnassah (livelihood).

“As a Jewish husband,” Glaser said with a shrewd smile, “cash flow keeps shalom bayis (peaceful vibes in the home) flowing. We depend on my income. Thankfully I made enough to get my three kids through 12 years of Jewish day school!”

“Thank God,” said Glaser, his plan is working. “Any time I despair, like I just finished a bunch of big clients. Now what? My wife always reassures me. She says, ‘You know, Sam, HaShem always has taken care of us.’”

One crucial reason is that the versatile, multi-talented Sam is as much engineer as performer. “When there is a breakdown, you do not make a phone call. You dive in.” Perhaps his most insightful moment surfaced when he declared: “I am a technician because I refused to not be able to make music.” On his website, Glaser says he is “equally comfortable behind a grand piano in intimate solo concerts, leading his eight-piece band or headlining with a full orchestra.”

“When I got out of (the University of Colorado) and tried to open my first recording studio, I had no idea what I was doing,” he admitted. “I was working with what was really primitive equipment. I figured out how to cobble together a decent finished product. My first few projects for people might not have been the best. But you figure it out. I have had years to figure it out, thank God.”

He seems to have been born with tech skills. “In my own realm, I can get the job done, and it really is a miracle,” Glaser said. “Let’s say something breaks down in the studio. You don’t necessarily want to call a tech. So what do you do? You have to troubleshoot, brainstorm, determine the source of the problem.”

As the youthful Glaser turns 60 this month, fixing what was broken has been a lifelong gift.

A performer since age seven, Glaser did not learn Mr. Fix-it from his parents.

“I am just really stubborn – or tenacious, either way you want to look at it,” he says.

After college, Glaser spent five years in the garment business with his father, while also trying to become a rock star. One day, he woke up and realized that after working a full-time job, 10 hours a day, he had nothing left at the end of the day to pursue his true love, music.

“Then my father lost his company,” Glaser said, “and I had to decide: Do I want to go into the music industry or the garment industry?” The question was not tough to answer. “In 1990, just before turning 28, I made a pledge to myself that I wanted to strike it out in music.”

“That is part of what makes this business interesting. You have to continuously reinvent yourself.“ 

Glaser soon learned that earning a living in show business is a constantly evolving challenge. “That is part of what makes this business interesting,” he said. “You have to continuously reinvent yourself. I never have had a paycheck since that year that was a regular do-the-job-and-get-a-paycheck. You have to continuously hustle.”  Does he find that energizing or frustrating? “Both,” Glaser said, “because you have to adapt.”