• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, January 3, 2011

It's the first commandment of sales: Respect thy customer. And building rapport with the audience is generally crucial to those among us who are talented and stouthearted enough to stand before floodlights and perform. We're not that far removed from the times when the audience would not only pelt unsatisfactory performers with rotten veggies and fruits. What's worse is that they'd get their money back for having done so.

Some of the most successful performers have a way of making you think that you're in intricate part of something special. I watched Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch wink and vamp their way into the hearts of a theater full of people on Saturday. The audience immediately rose after the last line and demanded repeated curtain calls. When we do this, I think, we are not only acknowledging the actors' craft, we are also applauding our own good taste for associating with something that seems so magical.

The day before, I'd read about another performance -- that of Ms. Lauryn Hill at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) -- that was not so warm and fuzzy and it got me thinking about just how important it may, or may not, be to give the customers what they want.

Jon Caramanica reports in the New York Times that by the time Hill arrived at the venue after midnight, more than an hour late, the audience had started to turn. Two people up front had written signs indicating their displease; the drummer taped "I was on time" to his kit. But Hill would have none of it, suggesting that the fans with the signs depart if they were not happy and yanking the sign off the drum.

"I spent my entire 20s sacrificing my life to give you love," said the 35-year-old rapper/balladeer at one point. "So when I hear people complain, I don't know what to tell you," she said. "I personally know I'm worth the wait."

I am a fan of Hill's work with the Fugees, and also of both of her releases as a sole performer -- the "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" and "MTV Unplugged," a live album where some of this same attitude also came across. Reading Caramanica's story, and reflecting back on some of Hill's patter on "Unplugged," I was reminded of another intense and provocative singer and posted the following on Facebook:

Ms. Lauryn Hill is truly channeling Miss Nina Simone, right down to her saying in the video attached to this story about her appearance in Williamsburg on Tuesday night: "We do the best we can with what we've have." I know I've got a Simone album somewhere - "Black Gold," maybe? -- where she says exactly the same thing. But I'll tell you what: On their good nights, they both get more out of a song than was originally there.

My audiocassette of "Black Gold" died a long time ago and the last I'd checked, it hadn't been issued as a CD. A vintage vinyl recording of the performance, as I recall, was in the $75 range. But when I looked again last night, I discovered that an MP3 has been released. I downloaded it and was transported back 40 years.

Simone didn't exactly say what I thought she said, although she very well may have said it elsewhere. But her introduction to "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" is in a similar spirit:

"We are recording tonight and because we are recording, it's time to do some things actually that we are too tired to do. But as Faye Dunaway, I think it was, said when 'Bonnie and Clyde' came out, she said she tried to give people what they wanted. That's a mistake, really. I know. You can't do it ... You give up everything you've got trying to give people what they want."

And the reality is that this was more endearing than off-putting to the audience, which applauded Simone warmly.

"But I will learn my lesson soon and they you will buy more records, right?" Simone continues.

I guess so. I certainly have.

Hill's performance was more uneven, it appears, and she'd lost about a quarter of the audience, including Prince, by the end of the 90-minute set. Caramanica writes: "It gave a glimpse of what Ms. Hill's future might look like: part idol, part adversary to herself and others."

Call it what you will, being real or displaying arrogance, or both, if you've got the goods, we do seem to buy into the attitude.

Apple most notoriously gets away with it. Verizon doesn't. Sub-Zero gets away with it. General Electric Appliances doesn't. Toyota has been coasting on it. General Motors has been sputtering for lack of it. It will be interesting to see what transpires in coming years if Toyota doesn't get its act together and General Motors' product line has improved as dramatically as some analysts feel it has.

But you've got to have the goods.