Star Licks

Star Licks Productions is an instructional music publishing company founded by Andrew Cross, Robert Decker and Mark Freed in 1984 headquartered in Santa Monica, CA. The company was at the forefront of creating instructional videos featuring well-known musicians demonstrating their unique musical styles and techniques on-camera.
The company's portfolio includes a wide-ranging group of musicians including: Brian May of Queen, Davey Johnstone of Elton John, Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, jazz guitar virtuoso, Larry Carlton, innovator of the electric guitar, Les Paul, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Steve Lukather of Toto, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and Ted Nugent.
Conception
In 1982, Andrew Cross, Robert Decker and Mark Freed were driving from Las Vegas to L.A. while discussing possible mail order ideas - they were all guitar players. Cross suggested that they make up some fictitious diet, incorporate it in a book with celebrity pictures and call it, “The Hollywood Diet of the Stars.” Freed suggested an idea his nephew (Danny Kochavar) had pitched: hire hotshot guitarists to recreate great guitar solos from well-known songs that could be performed fast and then slowly on audio cassette. Since nobody knew anything about nutrition, not to mention malpractice suits, they choose the guitar idea.
After some research, the only similar product they could find was Arlen Roth's Hot Licks. They initial reaction was to can the idea - however, after closer review, they found that Roth was promoting himself more than the licks he was demonstrating. This led to believing that if guitarists were interested in Arlen Roth licks, they would most certainly be interested in learning Clapton/Hendrix/Beck licks - hence, the company ‘Star’ Licks went into development.
One year later, Star Licks was shipping tens-of-thousands of audio cassettes with accompanying notation booklets worldwide for several years. Star Licks produced additional product lines (Star Jam, Star Guitar) to compete with the myriad of newcomers saturating the marketplace. After several years of being at the forefront, sales began to drop - thus, it was time to rethink the product.
Conception - Master Series Celebrity Videos
* Brian May (Queen)
:The next logical step was to move from imitation to artist participation. This would become the Master Series. Decker took on the task of compiling a list of his favorite guitarists, searching through their albums, and stringing together their best solos. Brian May would be their first celebrity to take part in this newfound concept, “Instructional Video.”
:After sending pitch proposals to several celebrity guitarists, in April of ‘84, Brian May left the following message on the office phone machine: Hi, this is Brian May. I just wanted to let you know that I got the cassette and the letter and everything - thanks very much. I'm takin' 'em back to England, and I'll have a go at doing them. You do realize it's gonna cost a little bit in studio time don't you?
:Click here to hear Brian’s actual phone message agreeing to participate.
* Al McKay (Earth, Wind & Fire)
:Though Brian May would be their first ‘video’ celebrity, Al McKay was their first ‘audio’ celebrity, as they had not yet considered instructional video. For the recording session, Al prepared 10 EWF selections with the rhythm/bass accompaniment pre-programmed on a modified Oberheim drum computer (very cool in its day). Like their previous products, they panned the rhythm sections left and the guitar performances right. In addition, Al preformed the guitar sections slowly—and for the first time—added verbal notes of interest between tracks.
:This product however, would never be released, as soon afterwards, Freed and Decker flew to London to record Brian May on video. With this, Star Licks now became a ‘video’ instructional company - hence, they scrapped Al’s earlier audio project and begged him to do another one for video. He agreed and did so with less emphasis on EWF and more emphasis on rhythm guitar in general.
:When the new products debuted, Al McKay’s video received the most praise from many of their customers and was ranked #1 in a Guitar Player Magazine review.
* Steve Lukather (Toto)

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