NARAS president leaves on low note

For a group beset by controversy, Michael Greene's resignationover the weekend as president of the National Academy of RecordingArts & Sciences was long overdue.

During his 14-year reign as president, Greene, 52, a former saxplayer with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, became one of themost powerful executives in the music business, credited with turningthe Grammys into a lucrative franchise on network TV. But he was alsoone of the most controversial.

Egotistical, abrasive, and condescending to anyone who dared toquestion him, Greene made headlines in recent years for much-publicized feuds with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas over Grammy events hosted in those cities.

Greene was a target of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by the LosAngeles Times that accused him of mishandling money earmarked forMusiCares, a charity that he initiated to help musicians withouthealth insurance. And in February, NARAS paid $650,000 to settle asuit filed against Greene by a former employee for sexual harassment.

The public face of a group with some 17,000 members, Greene wasprimarily known to music fans as the guy who always spoke too longduring the last half hour of the annual Grammy telecast. This year,he deviated from his vetted and preapproved speech to deliver apersonal diatribe about the evils of downloading music from the Net.

Greene leaves NARAS with an estimated severance of $8 million--anextraordinary figure that could fund many high school music programsand provide health care for a lot of indigent musicians, two ofNARAS' worthiest causes.

While none of the movers and shakers in the Chicago chapter, oneof the nation's most active, would speak on the record, someprivately defended Greene's salary and reputation by noting thatNARAS was a poorly organized group before he took charge, and hiscompensation was in line with that of any CEO who built a successfulnational corporation.

But Chicago insiders also grant-ed that it was time for Greene togo, because over the last few years, he seemed to be doing NARAS asmuch harm as good.

Formed by musicians and recording professionals in the mid-1950swith the mission of honoring artistic excellence, and structured likethe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (sponsors of theOscars), NARAS was a notoriously conservative group until the early1990s.

It ignored major rock artists such as Bob Dylan and the RollingStones through the '60s, when they were doing their finest work, andit remains overly susceptible to industry hypes at the expense oftruly innovative independent artists.

Greene made some strides in changing that. But more of the hardwork has been done by dedicated volunteers at the local level.

Under the stewardship of Central Region director Griff Morris andlocal members and trustees such as Neil Tesser, Steve "Silk" Hurley,Kurt Elling and Cathy Richardson, NARAS has reached out tounderground musicians in the city's indie-rock, house, hip-hop andjazz scenes. It has sponsored educational panels for local musiciansand high schoolers, and it launched the Local Heroes Awards to honorChicago greats.

Here's hoping that the next national president will care as muchabout music as the people at the grass-roots level, and that he orshe will use those qualities to provide the next logical step inNARAS' evolution.