I’ve spent several years working in music as my profession. If you measure success, the people who win all the awards and play the big arenas then by no means am I successful. If you measure success by someone who does this as the majority of their pay, then I probably fall in a category of success. I would probably say it’s minimal.
I almost guarantee none of you has heard of me lol!!
A few years ago, I was asked to judge a talent competition at a local community college. There was a young lady walked up on stage and blew everyone away. I recorded some of her song that she competed with and sent it to my producer and asked him to maybe help her with some folks that has played those arenas and won those Awards. I ended up telling her and her folks after the show was over that I had dropped her name to some people that I work with in Nashville. I told her that she probably would want to move up there and try to get work.
I was playing drums for a friend of hers who was actually her vocal teacher at a restaurant one night and she showed up. We talked and I told her then that the best thing she could do was to get on Instagram or tick tock and just start videoing herself seeing.
It took about 2 months. She released an Instagram video singing one of Reba McEntire’s songs… The very next day Reba reposted that video… Within a week the young lady had a publishing deal with Reba’s company. Side note: she’d never written a song in her life! It’s been a couple years now - one of her songs has been recorded on landman the TV show… And just this week she announced that Vince Gill was cutting another one of her songs.
I used to be the type of person that would get bitter about someone else’s success. Especially, since I’ve been busting my, well, you know, for several years to get where I’m at. Then along comes a rookie lol and is just knocking it out of the park! I no longer get bitter about things like that… But it makes me sad. It also makes me realize that maybe I just don’t have it. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it and I can’t get over that mountain.
I would quit but then I would grow old wondering what would have happened if I had not. I don’t want to quit because I enjoy where I am. I enjoy getting to write and getting to perform and in my mind when I’m looking across a room of 500 to 1,500 to 3,000 people - I’m that 4-year-old kid standing on my back porch playing my favorite song on my radio and pretending that the lightning bugs are people snapping my picture in a big arena…
The music that is within me that comes out it’s greater than chasing a dream that I’ll never achieve.. it’s like breathing.
I am genuinely happy for this young lady that she’s not having to work is hard as I have. And I think that if this were the 1980s or even the ’90s or even the early 2000s she would probably have it harder than she does now.. because someone like Reba already did the hard work on her behalf.
If the good Lord chooses to allow more success to come my way, I would greatly be appreciative of it… If he doesn’t.. I’m still thankful that I have this talent that I can share.
Loading comments...