On October 6, members of the Recording Academy met members of Congress in 200+ congressional districts nationwide to advocate on behalf of music creators. Having recruited a dozen Recording Academy members from New Mexico, Rachel flew to the "Land of Enchantment" and gathered these accomplished music creators for meetings with the staffs of U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján and three members of the House of Representatives.
All photos by Curtis McElhinney. @curtisvision
Our meeting with Senator Luján's staff was hosted at the Kitchen Sink Recording Studio in Santa Fe. Thank you to the Kitchen Sink's Jono Manson and Tim Schmoyer for their hospitality at this fine center of New Mexico music-making.
We advocated for fair pay for recording artists & owners of sound recordings. We also promoted tax reforms related to expenses incurred by independent artists and record labels when making records.
At left: Peter Bried & Bob Witsenhausen
We also advocated for passage of legislation that would, if enacted, limit the admissibility of lyrics in criminal trials. Finally, we put in a good word for increasing America's usage of music as an international diplomacy tool.
Participants included Emilio Castillo, founder and leader of Tower of Power, and producer/engineer Marc Whitmore, who won the coveted "Album of the Year" GRAMMY Award with Jon Batiste earlier this year.
Front row: Juan "Buddy" Abeyta, Mike Dawson, Tower of Power founder Emilio Castillo, Windwalker Dorn, Rachel Stilwell, Graham Mason, Maximiño Manzanares, David Manzanares, Susie Tallman, and Jono Manson.
We met with the staffs of three Congresswomen: Melanie Stansbury, Teresa Leger Fernandez and Yvette Herrell in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces. Thank you to Elizabeth Arevalo from Rep. Leger Fernandez' office, Ebony Baty from Rep. Stansbury's office, and Keyden Smith-Herold from Rep. Herrell's office for your thoughtful attention to your constituent music creators! P.S. we love, musical theatre, rock, native & classical music too!
Rachel has led GRAMMY advocacy meetings in California, Nevada, Arizona and now New Mexico, building advocacy teams in areas where lawmakers were not yet familiar with their constituent music makers. Next fall she'll go back to the "Land of Enchantment" to further team-build... and eat chile.
