Warren pitches arts to music industry

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants the music industry to push Congress on supporting the arts.

On Thursday, the Massachusetts Democrat appeared before members of the Recording Academy — which puts on the Grammy Awards each year — to fire them up before meeting with lawmakers for their annual advocacy push in Washington. 

{mosads}“The way I see it is that it is very important that Congress support music and the arts and that we do it both with good laws in terms of making sure that people are fairly compensated — that compensation is fairly divided,” she told a crowd that included musicians like Eddie Money.

“We also do it in terms of making sure that we are supporting the [National Endowment for the Arts] and other programs that help support artists — artists early in their career, artists in the middle of their career, artists who don’t have careers that are as well established commercially.”

“This town passes lass, passes regulations that always keeps in mind the perspectives of millionaires and billionaires,” she added. “And a lot of that is about cut taxes, cut regulations.”

“What we don’t hear enough from is why should we support the arts? We don’t hear enough of what it takes to make us a better country.”

Warren — who was nominated for a Grammy last year for the audio version of her book “A Fighting Chance” — might be an odd candidate for the music industry group, which has launched a concerted push to get Congress to reform the nation’s laws about when they get paid royalties for performances of their songs. 

But the firebrand liberal has captured headlines and attention ahead of the 2016 presidential race, and is surely a valuable asset for the Recording Academy to have in its effort.

Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled legislation to shake up the way musicians and songwriters get paid.