My Daughter, the Music “Macher”!

This might not mean too much to anyone outside of either the radio or record business, but it does to me!

My daughter, Elena Lanza, was one of the driving forces that helped spearhead Capitol Records as the Number One Dance Music label in 2011 according to Billboard Magazine!

Pretty decent sized feat, and my little girl, as Dance Music Coordinator, along with her team, did it!

I remember how jacked she was when she told me how she convinced the folks at Capitol, a few years back, to form a Dance Music department when there was none!

So, they said, “here’s the ball, go run with it!”

And run with the ball she did!

Helping to get artists like David Guetta, Katy Perry, and Swedish House Mafia gain mass appeal acceptance through the auspices of the dance music department at Capitol. (For anyone who doesn’t know, pop records don’t become mass appeal until they attain a certain amount of acceptance at another level, like Dance. That’s where all her hard work pays off!

Working program directors to play her records…working clubs, getting artists the attention they need at the club level and at radio; all the necessary ingredients to make hit records, and the hit artists that make them!)

And she had some great mentors along with way.

Paul Yeskel, who was an independent promoter, and at who’s independent promotion business she was able to learn the ropes of promotion.

Steve Leeds, who’s now an SVP at SiriusXM, was an adjunct professor at Willy P (William Paterson University), and gave her the guidance to become a college music rep at Universal Records.

Dr. Steve Marcone, the head of the Music Department at William Paterson University, inspired her to pursue her path in music business.

And she had quite a bit of exposure to the radio side of the business too, from who else…starting from when I used to take her with me to work at WPLJ and Hot 97; and had her answering phones.

From there, my wife and I would take her to station events. She marched with me in the Puerto Rican Day parade (back in her “Elena Rojas” phase, pictured below):

and Queens Fest; and got to meet Stevie B (Spring Love).

She was also with my wife and me at the Hot 97 Day at Seaside in 1990; (the precursor to “Jersey Shore”, probably when Snookie was still crapping in her Pampers!), where she got to see India perform “The Lover Who Rocks You”, Pajama Party, Laizzaire Faire, and God knows who else from the freestyle era. (That’s where she developed the love for the genre..definitely ahead of her time!)

God knows how many other events she’d been to back then…Expo 92, the MTV tour at what is now the PNC Banks Arts Center…just to name a couple more!

She’d also make her own mix tapes on her cassette deck, and would share those stories back then with DJ Mike Rizzo.

So it’s only natural that both my wife and I beat our chests (Lynn’s bigger than mine) with pride at her accomplishment!

And know, that not only will her drive and determination take her to wherever she wants to go…but she’ll make us grandparents as well!

Not a bad 60th birthday present…now is it!