Craft over Art: or the unsung lumpen folk who actually design and make the stuff the Auteurs and Artists purportedly tell them to

I've always bristled at acclaim and attention singularly accruing to the person whose name is on the piece when not only is a lot of art deeply collaborative, but sometimes essentially ghost-written.

Who are the unsung underlings behind your favorite or even detested art, movies, music?

Kathleen Brennan springs immediately to mind, even though she does get some recognition, its not enough.

When I interviewed clarinetist Don Byron in 2021, he told me about working with producer Hal Willner, who was famous for throwing musicians together in unorthodox combinations for tribute albums to Walt Disney, Nino Rota, Charles Mingus and others, and for creating the show Night Music. Here's what Byron said about Willner's actual role in the Mingus album:

“Man, he was just off getting high. He didn’t really do anything. He would just get a lot of really good musicians together and just throw you in the pit, you know? One of the tunes that I played on, I wrote the charts for everybody to read. ’Cause he just said, ‘Why don’t we play such-and-such?’ Nobody had a chart for it. So it was kinda like that. If you get a whole bunch of famous rock guys and you throw ’em together with a whole bunch of famous jazz guys, you throw ’em together with this and you throw ’em together with that, you will get something. You know, you have to have a big budget to make those kind of records, ’cause there’s a lot of tape rolling, not knowing what’s gonna happen kind of thing. And that’s really what I remember. But he didn’t — I mean, all I remember about him the days that I was there was he was just there getting high. He was a guy that facilitated a lot of shit. ’Cause he knew people, he had access to money, he could make certain kinds of things happen. I mean, just having those Harry Partch instruments around, you need to be on the inside to make some shit like that happen.”

all the original uncredited Disney animators, not the least of which are those covered in "Queens of Animation" by Nathalia Holt

Mary Blair did actually eventually get the occasional credit but Bianca Majolie, Grace Huntington, Sylvia Holland, Ethel Kulsar and others got nothing. (To be fair tons of male animators also went uncredited, Tyrus Wong was the lead artist/designer for "Bambi" but only got a credit as one of several "background illustrators"

questions from a worker who reads

Sven Nykvist, but of course his name shows up in the credits

This happens in architecture all the time, the myth of the artiste with the singular vision. I worked for a lower-level "starchitect" once upon a time, and I'd say about 80% of a given project's direction/evolution came down to underlings like myself. But that gets in the way of a good story.

In movies, classic titles like Citizen Kane and Night of the Hunter would not be the cultural touchstones they are without the dramatic shadow-heavy work of the cinematographer Stanley Cortez (not that he's exactly unsung, but he ain't no Orson Welles either.)

I dunno about Laughton but I wouldn't fault Welles, by all accounts an unusually collaborative and generous team player

I'm sure this is pretty darn common with today's crop of celebrity chefs

For some reason that 80%-underling architect number brings to mind Supreme Court clerks... I wonder how many precedent-setting decisions turn on the wording of some fresh out of law review geek.

Warhol springs to mind

Auguste Maquet's contribution to Alexandre Dumas perè's novels is one that comes to mind. Maquet, at least, regarded himself as deserving co-author credit. My understanding is that he was instrumental in research, organization, and plot outlines, and Dumas then filled them out and developed dialogue.

(as someone who didn't credit his collaborators)

xp

I recall reading somewhere that a large amount of James Brown's early-mid 70s soundtrack albums (e.g. The Payback) were written by Fred Wesley (trombone player for the J.B.s). But he does appear to be at least co-credited on some of that stuff

Fela Kuti gets all the credit, but as he himself said, "No Tony Allen, no Afrobeat."

Charles & Ray Eames

Most manga artists work with assistants. Kinsa crazy that you can read a volume with no real certainty how much of it is actually drawn by the person whose name is on the cover

I like the idea that the more technically inept you are at keeping drawings on model, the more likely upset fans will suss out and credit you!

re: James Brown - I don't know if he fits because he *did* credit people, often calling out the most critical contributors (Fred, Maceo, Bootsy, etc.) on record. That being said, he was also an illiterate non-musician who could neither write nor play music. But he did do *something* - which most of his collaborators could not explain - that brought out the best in everybody, and he shaped and directed the music.

I don't think Brown ever took credit for arranging things

he arranged threesomes

Dale Chihuly immediately comes to mind. He hasn't personally made a glass sculpture since he blew out his shoulder in 1979, but he has a crew to do it for him. That led to this lawsuit (later dismissed)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/arts/dale-chihuly-artwork-lawsuit-michael-moi.html?mcubz=1&_r=0

Might be a stretch to use the term auteur (or even artist) but apparently Jeffrey Archer's novels are sketched out by his wife, the fragrant Mary, then sent off to an army of editors at the publisher to knock them into shape for publication. All he does is supply an outline of the story. Being a compulsive liar though he manages to come up with something compelling that his sensible and reliable team would never imagine themselves. He's still knocking them out, by the way! 'An Eye for an Eye' came out this year, the seventh novel in the William Warwick series. Thanks, Wikipedia.

I suspect many best-selling books are written in this way.

Polly Platt

Ghostwriting is a whole separate phenomenon from this thread's purview, I think. (I ghostwrote a novel about international cocaine smuggling a couple of years ago. I thought it was pretty good! But I don't know if it was ever even published. It was supposed to be the middle volume in a trilogy, I think. I got paid $15,000.)

Art technicians: The industry's dirty secret, or all part of the process?
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/art-artist-technicians-assistants-edingburgh-art-festival-turner-prize-andy-scott-lucy-skaer-a8452456.html

it seems at some point later in his career, Salvador Dali just signed prints... that's why there's so many of them

re: James Brown . . . he was also an illiterate non-musician who could neither write nor play music.
― famous instagram dog (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, October 10, 2024 1:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not true. Witness his organ-playing prowess (at ~4:30)

Pretty sure I've seen film of Brown playing drums, too.

Billy Strayhorn

Not true

we've had this argument. I stand by Fred Wesley's reporting that the rest of the band found Brown's attempts at playing organ "laughable" and while his playing works within the song he is not anywhere close to the level of musicianship he demanded from his employees er sidemen. Yes, he also played drums, albeit not for long (I'm not sure any of that was on record?), he quickly moved to the front behind the microphone, where he was most effective.

threads where i just want to kneejerk post "lol capitalism" but then want to talk about how any version of value or acclaim or attention is also posited on that ideology in more complex ways that might (not) be worth thinking about but then i don't have an answer to the specific thread question cos i reject the question but then

(Captain Beefheart and) The Magic Band

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Band#Relationship_with_Beefheart

I don't want to give the impression that my intention is to diminish Brown's contributions to popular music. He's arguably the single most important American musician of the latter half of the 20th century. But the skills he deployed to achieve that were in a strange and unusual way largely extra-musical. It's just a statement of fact that he had no training or chops or facility on any particular instrument, he didn't know the rules or theory of music, he couldn't distinguish notes or keys, he couldn't speak the musical language his band relied on to play the songs - Brown himself *knew* this (although he might not have admitted it publicly), which is one of the reasons he surrounded himself with such incredible musical talent, why he always had someone else to handle the music, whether it was Maceo or Fred or David Matthews or whoever. He knew he needed people who could translate his vision and ideas into actual sounds that would register with the audience.

now, did that keep Brown from issuing singles with himself doing organ solos over orchestras or whatever? No, it did not. But I wouldn't cite any of them as evidence of any real virtuosity. I believe Fred Wesley's actual quote is that it was "ignorant bullshit".

I see what you're saying. But it is confusing to describe someone as a "non-musician" and then, a few minutes later, "arguably the single most important American musician of the latter half of the 20th century". Also "ignorant bullshit" by people with little to no technical understanding probably describes at least half the music I like

Fred Wesley: "I know that it's hard to believe, but it would have been impossible for James Brown to put his show together without the assistance of someone like Pee Wee [Ellis], who understood chord changes, time signatures, scales, notes and basic music theory. Simple things like knowing the key would be a big problem for James. So, when James would mouth out some guitar part, which might or might not have had anything to do with the actual song being played, Jimmy or Country would have to attempt to play it simply because James was still in charge. We all had to pretend that we knew what James was talking about. Nobody ever said 'That's ridiculous' or 'You don't know what you're talking about.' The whole James Brown show depended on having someone with musical knowledge remember the show, the individual parts, and the individual songs, then relay these verbally or in print to the other musicians. James Brown could not do it himself. He spoke in grunts, groans and la-di-das and he needed musicians to translate that language into music and actual songs in order to create an actual show."

I've never come across any biographical account or interview that disputes this, this corresponds to what his other sidemen have said, other biographers have written etc.

Can we pivot the thread to some Richard Prince hate at some point?

That sounds like plenty of creative types though - Beefheart, Jon Anderson, Phil Spector to some extent, loads more. Not really virtuoso musicians but they have a vision that their collaborators lack. Heard the Mallard albums? Exactly my point.

xpost

Fred Wesley: "Mr. Brown would sometimes come to the gig early and have what we called a 'jam', where we would have to join in with his fooling around on the organ. This was painful for anyone who had every thought of playing jazz. James Brown's organ playing was just good enough to fool the untrained ear, and so bad that it made real musicians sick on the stomach. The really painful 'jams' were when Pee Wee played organ and James played drums. I never saw anybody play so bad with so much confidence and determination. The look on Brown's face when he played drums was the funniest thing I ever saw. After we got accustomed to the jams and saw the looks on his face when he played, the real pain got to be trying to keep from busting out in uncontrollable laughter."

xp

and yes Spector is another good obvious example of this, the Wrecking Crew and all his arrangers/cowriters laboring under the shadow of the teenage prince

But it is confusing to describe someone as a "non-musician" and then, a few minutes later, "arguably the single most important American musician of the latter half of the 20th century".

I know! It's wild! Not being sarcastic here. James Brown is confounding.

I think it's notable that a lot of the men listed so far (lol of course it's always men) all kind of conform to Byron's description of Wilner: these are people that might not have had much in the way of musical skill, talent or discipline, but they did have a different (and also critical) set of skills, which is the ability to conceptualize things, spot talent, organize people, motivate them. This is more like a managerial talent. And per the OP, it's a talent that requires craftsmen to ultimately produce anything of value.

The ideal band format is a bunch of musicians who can play anything, and a dictatorial goon to tell them what not to play, because otherwise you wind up with Dream Theater.

(lol of course it's always men)

I feel like Yoko Ono definitely belongs in this discussion. Her ideas, manifested by musicians she picks.

good call

The ideal band format is a bunch of musicians who can play anything, and a dictatorial goon to tell them what not to play
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Thursday, October 10, 2024 5:08 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

e.g. Mark E. Smith and a seasoned female percussionist

Parallel to this - Danny Elfman's movie soundtrack factory

Also "ignorant bullshit" by people with little to no technical understanding probably describes at least half the music I like

agree and would add that musicians with astronomical chops often have chips on their shoulders and think lots of shit is beneath them. it doesn't necessarily follow that james brown is a "non-musician"

someone here posted a link recently to an interesting article about how big Hollywood soundtrack composers don’t actually compose 100% of the music they are credited for?

might have been this

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/02/the-ugly-truth-of-how-movie-scores-are-made

As for the unheralded studio musicians who play on large numbers of popular recordings I'm partial to bass guitar players as a group. Without the bass line they provide most pop music (and nearly 100% of dance music) would be as limp as a wet noodle.

Dale Chihuly immediately comes to mind

otm

threads where i just want to kneejerk post "lol capitalism" but then want to talk about how any version of value or acclaim or attention is also posited on that ideology in more complex ways that might (not) be worth thinking about but then i don't have an answer to the specific thread question cos i reject the question but then

Damien Hirst

I might have missed it upthread but the mention of Stanley Cortez and Citizen Kane threw me so I double-checked -- Cortez was on Magnificent Ambersons, Gregg Toland did Kane.

haha re: architecture I recently went to the year-end exhibition at a London university, and the architectural technicians were hived off in a side-room! my partner (who is an architectural technician) was like 'yeah this is typical'

What does Fred Wesley have to say about George Clinton I wonder? At least James Brown played organ even if it not well enough for Fred Wesley.

In the unsung heroes of detested art category, I vaguely remember reading somewhere about CG guys / mecha designers pushing back against Michael Bay's disgusting robot aesthetics and was thinking jesus if those gear-barnacled monstrosities are the result of restraint, what vomitous horror would an unfiltered Bayformer look like?

Also, despite digging I could never figure out who Murakami commissioned to actually make his infamous oversized XXX anime statues though I also vaguely remember reading there were a lot of balance issues with getting them not to topple over the swirls of plasticized manga body fluids, and also wonder if their anonymity suits them just fine.

Other than for resume purposes, would you ever want your involvement with a Damien Hirst piece known?

Other than for resume purposes, would you ever want your involvement with a Damien Hirst piece known?

Well, that "for resume purposes" is crucial, because maybe the Hirst job gets you a job with Jeff Koons or the Chapman brothers or whoever...you can just bounce from one shitty art factory to the next.

haha re: architecture I recently went to the year-end exhibition at a London university, and the architectural technicians were hived off in a side-room! my partner (who is an architectural technician) was like 'yeah this is typical'

Auguste Rodin's late work was largely by the hands of his assistants, based on clay models.

Oh and on James Brown:

whether it was Maceo or Fred or David Matthews

WRONG DUDE

Dave Matthews Band : Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

pochettino and alderweireld

Auguste Rodin's late work was largely by the hands of his assistants, based on clay models.

Camille Claudel was the lover and assistant to August Rodin whose own brilliant body of work was the subject of a solo exhibit at the Getty/Art Institute of Chicago this summer. She was apparently gifted at sculpting hands. Her talent was thwarted by Rodin and her personal life ended tragically and in poverty. I've seen a few people on ILX mention the film based on Claudel's life, will have to watch it.

Steven Robinson was apparently a key collaborator/co-dependent with John Galliano. Had no idea of the degree of Robinson's creative contributions until seeing High/Low where they are highlighted.

I might have missed it upthread but the mention of Stanley Cortez and Citizen Kane threw me so I double-checked -- Cortez was on Magnificent Ambersons, Gregg Toland did Kane.

The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check.

Although I'd heard this rumor several times, reading R.J. Smith's Chuck Berry bio a couple years ago convinced me that Johnnie Johnson deserved songwriting credit on more than a few tunes.

Also, despite digging I could never figure out who Murakami commissioned to actually make his infamous oversized XXX anime statues though I also vaguely remember reading there were a lot of balance issues with getting them not to topple over the swirls of plasticized manga body fluids, and also wonder if their anonymity suits them just fine.

lol

also I think I have the answer to this in an old pub, hang on

"Full-scale model made by Fuyuki Shined (Vi-shop), advised by Takeshi Shirai (Kaiyodo) and Syuichi Miyawaki (Kaiyodo)"

Production credits for other works from this period include Masahiko Asian and MA Modeling Laboratory, Masakazu Kunimori, Bome of Kaiyodo and Toro Saegusa of Shadow Moon

I think most of these are toy manufacturers like Bandai

*Fuyuki Shinada

damn autocorrect

Huzzah! -- Some future art historian will definitely be in your debt!

Also, Kaiyodo releasing toy models of My Lonesome Cowboy would have been awesome (especially considering their ratcheted ball-joints for maximum posability)