Now He’s Moonlighting as a Record Label Founder

Remember Bruce Willis’ stab at a recording career in the ‘80s? He doesn’t mind if you don’t--he’s not exactly a big fan himself of the two albums he made for Motown Records before that pursuit kind of, well, died hard.

Now he’s getting back into the music business--not to make albums of his own, but to provide a home for music he believes is important but marginalized by the major labels and radio.

To that end, the actor is launching his own label, Uptop Music Corp., specifically to release an album by Ivan Neville, son of New Orleans titan Aaron Neville.

“Good writers, good musicians who aren’t the new hot thing have a difficult time,” Willis says. “A lot of really great music falls through the cracks. I’ve known Ivan a long time and love that family and the history that is there. At a certain point ... we said, ‘Why don’t we do a record with Ivan?’”

And Willis’ role in the venture?

“To be honest, part of the math on this was to use all the clamor about me being an alleged big-shot movie star to shine some of the spotlight to help showcase Ivan,” he says.

Willis and his band, the Accelerators, will team up with Neville and his band for a series of club dates around the country in the weeks before the album’s release, planned for Jan. 14, pending completion of distribution arrangements for Uptop. Willis says a model for this effort is Jill Scott, who built buzz through live performances.

Helping shape the strategy have been Willis’ friend Gary Gold, a producer and writer on the project, and Robert Kraft, a longtime friend of Willis who is president of 20th Century Fox’s music division.

There are also a few other star-power names involved. Keith Richards and Bonnie Raitt, both of whom Neville has backed, play on the album. Aaron Neville lent his unmistakable voice to one song, while other musicians sitting in included veterans Bobby Womack, George Duke and Robben Ford.

Gold stresses that this should not be seen as merely a Willis vanity project to support a friend, and that the business plan for the label is not based on Willis’ deep pockets.

“Bruce is a very principled guy who only does things he believes in,” Gold says. “He didn’t get where he is by accident. He’s absolutely not planning on losing money with this. He loves a challenge, and failure is not an option to him.”

SAIL AWAY: Randy Newman’s “Toy Story” song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” is all about pals sticking together through anything. But now, for the first time since 1968, Newman has made a record deal with a company not run by his lifelong friends Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin.

Newman started his recording career 33 years ago at Ostin’s Warner Bros. Records (with Waronker there as a producer and executive) and several years ago moved with them when they were tapped to run DreamWorks Records. But after just one album for the company, 1999’s “Bad Love,” Newman has signed with Nonesuch, the respected specialty label distributed by Atlantic.

“I love Mo and Lenny, but I don’t think DreamWorks is necessarily for me,” says Newman, 58. “They might have dropped me if they weren’t there. Who knows?”

DreamWorks, he says, was focusing more on breaking new acts, and as an “old croc” whose last album sold 150,000 copies worldwide, he felt out of place.

“I don’t subscribe to the theory that the record industry is awful,” says Newman, whose career in recent years has been more focused on movie scores than on pop albums. “It’s just different and not responsive always to old crocs.”

That’s just the kind of artist that Nonesuch has been pursuing lately. Known primarily for classical and world music (Philip Glass, Buena Vista Social Club), Nonesuch has recently gone after respected pop-related acts whose sales fall beneath the level normally targeted by major labels, including Emmylou Harris, Sam Phillips and Wilco.

“The model for artists like these in terms of marketing is different than a pop model,” says the label’s president, Robert Hurwitz. “There is so much dependent on radio and video and tour support, which takes up a huge chunk of a pop company’s investment. We’ve always placed our bets on trying to bring out records that have the quality of not sounding like anyone else, and at the same time will still sound great 10 years from now or longer. One thing with Randy is you go back and listen to his very first album, and it sounds like he could have made it last year. It’s still fresh and original.”

SIGNING WARS: DreamWorks may have lost Newman, but it’s picked up Bay Area punk band AFI, signed by A&R; executive Luke Wood after heated competition with new Warner Bros. Records Chairman Tom Whalley and Vice President Craig Aaronson.

AFI is a seasoned band with four albums released by Nitro Records (owned by Offspring singer Dexter Holland) and a rapidly growing audience. Its latest album, “Art of Drowning,” is selling at a steady clip of 1,300 a week, with total sales of 86,000 since its release more than a year ago--very solid for an independent--and the band sold out two nights at L.A.’s Palace recently.

“It’s a unique situation with a band that has done the work and has a creative vision for the marketplace,” Wood says. “They’ve managed themselves to this point and built up an authentic, passionate following, and we have to continue on with their vision.”

Contractually, the band owes one more album to Nitro, but it’s possible that a deal will be struck allowing it to go to DreamWorks.

SMALL FACES: Jayhawks founders Mark Olson and Gary Louris recently re-teamed to write new songs for the first time since Olson left he band six years ago. “Say You’ll Be Mine” and “We Are Not Afraid” were intended for the upcoming Disney film “The Rookie” but weren’t used in the movie. They could wind up on future albums by either the Jayhawks or Olson’s Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers....

Homer Simpson will sing a version of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” on an episode of “The Simpsons” set to air in April, but Chumbawamba itself has turned to politically conscious English folk singers for the basis of its next album, also due in April. The group built songs around samples of such influential figures as Lal Waterson and Dick Gaughan and newer acts including Kate Rusby--plus American indie-folkie Elliott Smith.... Willie Nelson’s daughter Amy Nelson and his harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, make guest appearances on a live album by country-punk band Supersuckers, due March 12 from the group’s new Mid-Fi label....

The Color Red, a group featuring singer Jon Zamora and bassist Marc Zamora, brothers of Alien Ant Farm’s Tye Zamora, has signed to Orange County band Lit’s Dirty Martini label. An album is due in May.