Tale of the Tapes : Jeffrey Knowles’ Cassettes--Filled With Music and Literature--Are Designed to Hold Commuters’ Attention

Jeffrey Knowles got the idea back when he commuted from his home in San Diego to work in Los Angeles: If he could listen to anything to relieve his terrible freeway ennui, what would it be?

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Now, having answered that question for himself, he’s producing and marketing “Train of Thought,” cassette tapes filled with a lively mix of spoken word and music from around the world.

“I call it ‘eclectic audio entertainment,’ ” Knowles, who believes his product is unique, said during a recent interview at his office at Com Audio Inc., the company he formed to market “Train of Thought.”

Each 90-minute cassette offers musical works, from flamenco guitar to tribal drumming, plus poetry, short stories, travelogues, humor pieces and other readings, also chosen for brevity as well as quality. Knowles’ idea was to formulate a mix that would hold commuters’ attention.

A former music producer for television, movies and commercials, he sells the tapes for $15 each, or by annual subscription, at $50 for four. Although he’s completed only three cassettes so far--he issued the first 18 months ago--he said he’s sold 2,000 subscriptions to listeners across the country and abroad.

Not all of them listen on the road, either.

Coreen and Jim Hart, who raise calves on a remote patch of land in southern Idaho, have no running water or electricity, but they do have a battery-operated tape recorder on which they play their “Train of Thought” cassettes.

“They’ve got so much more to offer than network TV,” Coreen Hart said by phone recently from her home, “and they’re real intellectually stimulating for people living in the middle of a sagebrush desert.”

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Authors Truman Capote and Edward Abbey are among the better-known names behind literary selections--read by actors--that the Harts have heard. Musically, they’ve encountered Irish singer Mary Black, acoustic guitarists Strunz & Farah and the zydeco rhythms of Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band.

“We look at the tapes as part of a permanent library,” Hart said, “something we’d like to listen to over and over again.”

Repeated listening is what a Travel and Leisure magazine review (and a subsequent piece in Time) recommended for the tapes that first came out last December, providing a boost to Knowles’ fledgling effort.

“I had about 100 subscriptions when the review came out,” he said, “then overnight, it shot up to 500 or 600.”

A business major at Arizona State University where he played guitar for extra money, the 36-year-old came to Southern California as a tourist in 1984. He soon began producing music in L.A. until urban burnout prompted him to buy a house in San Diego.

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Then, two years ago, “I lost a big account, which is normal in the jingle business,” Knowles said, “and I started looking at the effort to go replace it, and I thought, ‘God, I’m going to go do what I really want to do,’ “--that is, to produce his tapes.

“I just dropped everything and did the mad-scientist thing where you sit and design and invent until it’s just right. Once I had it together, I moved up” to Corona del Mar. He recently moved his headquarters to Irvine.

He compiled Volume 1, “just by calling around, trying to get licensing” rights. That hasn’t been difficult, he said, because record companies and publishers like the idea that a new audience will be introduced to their clients via the tapes, which include liner notes listing the sources for his selections.

Knowles, however, admits he got “got creamed” when he first put the product on the market.

He tried selling mainly through bookstores, but while his suppliers, such as the factory that produces the tapes, “would start screaming at me” for payment after 30 days, some vendors might not pay him for five months.

“So I’ve learned to treat this like a magazine,” he said, “and place small ads and do direct-mail” solicitation, a cheaper and more efficient method.

The programming mix on “Train of Thought” is similar to National Public Radio’s popular twice-daily programs that deliver news as well as a wide range of features, including interviews with renowned and up-and-coming authors and musicians and excerpts of their work. But Knowles doesn’t see such shows as competition.

“Those programs are great,” he said, “but NPR is nonfiction. This is a walk through fiction-land.”

As for the musical end of it, “I’m not interested in interviewing talent. I don’t care if the musician is an actor too or lived in Australia. I care if, as a piece of sound, it’s great.”

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Knowles’ business is still running in the red, but while he won’t discuss dollar amounts, he expects to be turn the corner in six months. He plans on March 1 to issue Volume 4, which will feature, among others, Zap Mama, the African-inspired women’s a cappella group, and mystery stories. According to form, the written pieces will be spiced up with such sound effects as chirping birds or police sirens.

His venture “has taken me in to a whole new world of what’s out there” culturally, he said. “From a business standpoint, it’s a fascinating thing to do for a living. I’m dealing with my own creative product and other peoples’ creative products.”

* “ Train of Thought,” Volumes 1-3, are $15 each or four (Volume 4 will be available in March) for $50. Free catalogues are available. (800) 676-7166.