Small Business Battles Big Business

Posted On: 2006-07-25
Length: 54:39

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Welcome to Small Business Trends Radio. I'm Anita Campbell, your host, and I am so glad you could join us today for what I think is going to be a more exciting show than usual. The show is "One American against Sony Music-one small business owner battles big business accounting practices." And our featured guest today, who I'll be introducing in just a moment, is Steve Popovich, Sr. Steve is president of Cleveland International Records. He has been described as a mega platinum hit maker, a Grammy winning producer, an Indie label guy and of course, consummate music fan of diverse genres--Everything from star vocalist Meatloaf, to Frankie Yankovich and polkas. Steve has a long and impressive list of music industry accomplishments to his credit, and for that reason, and just because Steve is a very interesting guy, I am thrilled to have you on the show. Welcome Steve.

Hi Anita, thank you so much for having me. I really love your Pennsylvania accent, by the way.

My husband will love you for saying that.

Yeah, great. Go Steelers. Go Steelers.

Well, Steve you have a fascinating background. So I think our guests would love to, our listeners would love to hear your background, a little bit about it and how you got into the music industry.

Well, you know, Anita, I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania in the coal fields like 60 miles south of Pittsburgh, and music was always a very important part of the miners and the ethnics that lived in those regions. And I was fortunate enough to be growing up in the 50s and 60s when Pittsburgh itself became such a great center for music. I mean, Cannonsburg, PA is where Perry Como, Bobby Vinton, the Four Coins are from. The Greater Pittsburgh airport had the Del Vikings as servicemen in the air force then. The Skyliners came out at that time. And of course I grew up in a house where my dad played in a tambourisa band, which was Yugoslavian folk music, and we heard just you know, folk music growing up, and because of the ethnic nature of the towns we were in, we learned to appreciate other people's cultures and respect other people cultures. We had, you know, it was a hodge-podge of the America melting pot, then. And that was the beginning, I think, kind of. And when I was seven years old, the Serbian priest, Father Bronco Scalias would come over and teach...