Star-Making Machinery

You might think that every artist you hear on the radio is rolling in dough, and it does work out that way for a fortunate few.

But for the vast majority of acts, recording and releasing and promoting music is an enormous amount of work with an uncertain payoff that may never come. Geoffrey Stokes’ from-the-trenches account of the 1970s-vintage country-rock band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen taking their major-label shot is an eye-opening account of how the sausage gets made – and how hard it is to break even.

In contrast to expensive sessions that leave artists… show more.