Melissa A. Weber Interview
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. Click here to subscribe!
Melissa A. Weber is an artist-scholar and music historian whose areas of interest and expertise include 20th-century Black popular music; the music and culture of her native New Orleans; go-go music and culture of Washington, D.C.; the history of Parliament-Funkadelic; and archives. She’s the curator of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz, a unit of Tulane University Special Collections, in addition to serving as an adjunct professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Weber has written for countless publications, and DJs under the name DJ Soul Sister.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I have about three or four (or more) different professional roles, but they all intersect. I guess I qualify for what people refer to as a multi-hyphenate. So while I don't have one linear path, my work really all emanates from loving music as a child. When I was in middle school, I started really wanting to learn more about and from the process of music and musicians. In high school, I started wanting to collect primary sources about the music I loved, and then sharing everything I learned with anyone who'd listen to me long enough. I've always been a writer, and my early professional career was as a communications professional, emphasizing in marketing and PR work. I really wanted to be a journalist, but I remember interning at a local music magazine, and I read one reader's angry letter to one of the writers, calling him all kinds of awful names and cursing him out. I really didn't want to deal with that kind of energy at that stage in my life, so I directed my writing skills into the marketing sector. And for fun, I'd write about music. Now all I do is write about music, whether in my professional capacity as an archivist and educator, or in my personal life, doing freelance journalistic or liner notes pieces. And I love the scholarly discipline of musicology, though I'd never heard the term in my life until Prince's 2004 song and album of the same name.
Did you have any mentors along the way? What did they teach you?
I never had a direct mentor. But I was in high school in the early 1990s when I discovered and read Nelson George's The Death of Rhythm & Blues. It was the first time I'd read non-fiction about Black popular music that made me want to read more. And it was the first time I'd experienced someone writing about Black popular music, and not just its top stars, in a serious way. And It inspired me to want to write to reach and teach others in an educational way that was also engaging. I wound up meeting him some years later, and he remains not only accessible to all younger writers and thinkers, but also inspiring as he's parlayed his music journalism career into filmmaking and other writing. He also is, for me, the role model for documenting events whether or not someone else is co-signing it. Because people are going to catch up to the topic in the future, and they're going to seek first-hand accounts from people who were there.
Walk me through a typical day-to-day for you right now.
My work at the Hogan Archive ranges from describing new or backlogged collections for accessioning purposes, speaking with potential collection donors, creating and marketing outreach programs or displays, and assisting colleagues in reference requests for patrons. I also teach on the university level, and just turned in final grades for my students. Developing a syllabus with effective lesson plans that students will enjoy is the hardest work I've ever done, and yet I sign up to do it again each year because teaching is the most rewarding work for me. And as a DJ and party promoter, I have to send out my own personal press releases to local media. There are also records I bought at the record store two weekends ago that I haven't had a chance to listen to yet. And I owe pieces to a couple publications.
What's one tip that you'd give someone involved in music that is starting out right now?
Read and heed everything that's put in front of you. Ignoring reading your contracts and memos today will mean headaches tomorrow.
What was the best track / video or film / book you've consumed in the past 12 months?
I'm biased because I'm a Parliament-Funkadelic scholar and fan, but Daniel Bedrosian's new book is a must-have. Titled [The Authorized P-Funk Song Reference: Official Canon of Parliament-Funkadelic, 1956-2023]*https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538183427/The-Authorized-P-Funk-Song-Reference-Official-Canon-of-Parliament-Funkadelic-1956-2023), it will end all confusions, arguments, disputes, and questions about who played what on P-Funk records, which were notorious for incorrect or missing artist credits in the liner notes. It's invaluable especially for journalists who want to get it right. This is the first time there's a source to help them do so. And I know there's a second edition coming because there's so much to cover! I recently interviewed Danny about his book. He's a historian, but also has been a keyboardist in P-Funk for about 20 years now. I think this book may be his ultimate legacy to this band. It's invaluable, and he's the only one who could do it because of the love and trust that he's earned from everyone in that community.
If you had to point folks to one thing of yours, what would it be and why?
Regarding music journalism, which is not the primary thing I do but is the thing I can point to as being mine, I'm proudest of this piece ("The Empire Strikes Back: 'Atomic Dog' and the Rebirth of Parliament-Funkadelic in the Early 1980s"). I did it for the now-defunct Red Bull Music Academy. It came out of a presentation I did at a Pop Conference, and I expanded it to include interviews with people who no one bothered to ask before. It was rewarding, and the editor for the piece was unrelenting, and I'm thankful for her edits and advising to this day. And it demonstrates, for me, the power of George Clinton's resilience... a lesson we can all draw inspiration from.
Anything you want to plug?
If anyone is interested in or has questions about using and researching with primary source materials from the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz at Tulane University Special Collections, I'd love to hear from them at mweber3@tulane.edu. And from digitized Hogan Archive collections, I'd like to plug some of my favorites that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home, such as The Legend of the Dew Drop Inn documentary interviews with Julia Dorn, the Vernon "Dr. Daddy-O" Winslow broadcast recordings, and Laurraine Goreau interviews and recordings related to Mahalia Jackson.