Artist’s House, named after Coleman’s old
apartment where musicians used to come
and go freely. Snyder began managing
other musicians such as Chet Baker, Gerry
Mulligan, Gil Evans and Paul Desmond.
Snyder was flying high until, again, the
fickleness of the industry put him out of
work in 1983. “Things in the music industry happen dramatically based on one
event. One success or one failure can make
or break you instantly.”
By this time his wife, whom he had
married in law school, had moved back to
be near family in Pineville. Snyder was
broke, and the utilities in his New York
apartment were turned off. He used extension cords to connect with electric outlets
in the hallway of his building through his
door. Once, Chet Baker, a notorious heroin
addict, showed up at Snyder’s apartment
looking for $7 so he could get his next fix.
Baker took one look at Snyder and said,
“Damn, man, what happened to you? You
look worse than me.”
Snyder moved back to Pineville to be
with his family. “My parents were all over
me, my in-laws were all over me, my
friends were all over me, and they weren’t
wrong to be that way. I was the big loser in
the family, despite what I’d done in New
York. I was 35 years old and at a dead end.
My wife was teaching school, and I played
Mr. Mom.”
But he was aching to get back into the
music business. His New York credentials
meant nothing in the legal world of North
Carolina in 1983.
He called John Hammond, who gave
him hope. He borrowed money from his
ex-sister-in-law — his wife and parents
wouldn’t give him any — and went back
to New York. Hammond hooked him up
with Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records.
“Ahmet gave me $75,000 to produce
three records. He told me, ‘If you can make
money on those records, you can stay.’”
Changing the context
Snyder stayed with Atlantic until 1987,
when he decided to go out on his own,
through his company Artist’s House. RCA,
Polygram and Telarc hired him as a freelance producer to make records. He produced a record for Etta James that sold
250,000 copies and won a Grammy Award.
Snyder’s business thrived until 2001,
when the Internet began changing the
industry. It was his cue to leave New York
and start over. He had thoughts about
leaving a legacy by teaching kids how to
succeed in the music industry. When the
job of directing Loyola’s Music Industry
Studies program opened in 2003, some of
Snyder’s business associates in Lafayette,
La., where he had been visiting regularly
to record albums for 10 years, put his
name in the hat.
“I wasn’t interested in moving to New
Orleans because I knew that it was a dangerous place geographically, but I went
through the interview process, and I had a
great time. They called me and offered me
the job, and I took it.” He started in 2004.
“I am excited about the future,” Snyder
says. “We have a chance here at Loyola to
combine the worlds of music, art, theater,
technology, natural science, business and
law and to have a curriculum which corresponds to the dynamic interaction between
those fields.
“My mission is to spread the word that
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