For a lot of us, life as a musician has been both a blessing and a curse. It has been a blessing because we love to play music. It has been a curse because most of us never make much money at it, or gain much notoriety�and, in fact, most of us either have to work day jobs or get into other aspects of music, such as teaching or working in music stores, in order to even make ends meet. Many of us have quit playing music at various times in our life, discouraged by the smokey bars, half-empty rooms and non-listening drunks, only to eventually come back, because we love playing music. Back in the mid-seventies, I hit the bottom of my musical career. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. About a year earlier I had some good luck. I happened to be sitting in the office of a friend of mine who was in management. A call came in from Davey Johnstone of the Elton John band. He was looking for a bass player to go out on tour with Kiki Dee. My friend said, �Well, I just happen to have a great bass player sitting right here in my office.� Davey said, �Send him over.� That was it! No audition�no nothing. In a few weeks, I was touring the U.S. with the Kiki Dee band and Davey Johnstone. Now, any number of bass players could have easily done the gig� I just happened to be in the right place at the right time�and everybody loved me. In fact, all kinds of artists were coming up to me saying, �When you get off tour call me. I have a gig for you.� I thought I had it made.
Well, the tour ended. Most of the band was hired to go out as backup band for Alice Cooper. But at the last moment Alice decided to go with his original bass player, and so I lost out on that one. I returned to L.A. The people who were going to call me never did. It seems that when you�re touring with a �celebrity�, everyone wants you, but when you�re not�nobody knows your name. It reminded me of a time I sat in with Huey Lewis in a club in Marin County. Huey had known me because we had common acquaintances in Marin for years. He asked if I wanted to come up and sing a song. I said �Sure�. I went up and sang �Little Red Rooster�, a blues song I had done a thousand times before. When I came off stage, I was mobbed. I couldn�t get off the dance floor because all the women were asking me to dance. It was then that I realized what a silly game it all was. I sang the same song down the street a week earlier. No one had even listened! But since I had sung it on stage with Huey Lewis�I must be somebody! I shook my head and laughed at the irony of it all. Meanwhile, back to L.A. in the seventies�I was making calls daily trying to find a gig. Nothing was panning out. No one knew me anymore� or cared! I couldn�t get much studio work because I wasn�t a good enough sight reader. I didn�t have any club gigs lined up, because I had been on tour. I sank lower and lower into my alcoholic depressed state. I didn�t know how I was going to make the rent. I finally ended up getting a job in a record store for $3.35 an hour. I just about quit playing music altogether, and I was starting to think about what else I could do with my life. My opinion of myself as a musician could not have been any lower. I started to buy into the things other people had told me growing up. When are you going to get a �real job�? Do something �valuable� with your life! I started hating being a musician.
One night I got tired of sulking around in my house. I walked up to Hollywood Boulevard. I thought I�d take in a movie and get my mind off things. I walked past �Deep Throat��not what I had in mind! I walked by �The Exorcist�. I had enough horror in my own life, thank you! I walked all the way down to the end of the strip past all of the movies. On the last block was a �live� stage show of �Beatlemania�. I thought, �Do I really want to pay $20 to see a bunch of guys imitating the Beatles?� Then I thought, �What the Hell. It would be fun just to hear some of those great songs again, if nothing else.� So, I went in.
As the band played, various video clips were being shown behind them. Overhead was a running news ticker telling what was happening at the time that particular song came out. For instance while the Beatles were singing �All You Need Is Love� the U.S. was napalming villages in Viet Nam Or while they were singing �Give Peace a Chance�, national guardsmen were shooting students at Kent State, or Martin Luther King , Jr. or the Kennedys were being assassinated.
I was overcome with emotion. It was just such a powerful statement to have these things juxtaposed�and it was then that I realized that being a musician wasn�t such a bad thing to be. I could have chosen to build bombs or to do any number of things that bring devastation and harm to the planet and its people. But, instead I had chosen to be a musician�to spread some joy and to entertain others. What a great thing to be! A new sense of pride came over me, and it was at that moment that, after playing music for nearly twenty years, I finally actually made the conscious decision to become a musician�and I have never looked back since. Has it been easy? No way! But I wouldn�t trade it for anything else in the world. I am proud to be a musician and to be a part of this great brotherhood and sisterhood of musicians and performing artists�wonderful people all! So, folks, keep the faith. What you do is valuable. Wear it with pride. After all, what would life be without music?
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