[Dixielandjazz] Smart or intelligent

Wed May 31 16:41:52 PDT 2006

Bob - Actually I have found most musicians to be fairly bright people which 
has nothing to do with how open minded or closed minded they are about 
political  or other issues.

Success (Monetary) is a lot like training chickens to peck at a the correct 
button to get a grain of corn.  Once you have the correct buttons under your 
fingers success follows.  Success has more to do with how persistent you 
are.  A lot of things are like a maze with a lot of wrong turns.  If you try 
one thing and it doesn't work you keep trying.

I'm going to tell you right now that over the last 50 years as a musician I 
have seen many better players than I just go away.  The reason is that it 
just got to be too much of an effort to keep trying new things or they 
failed to network or did something else stupid like think they were too good 
to stoop to mere mortals level.

Everyone knows an incredible musician that plays better than anyone else 
they have heard but he is playing in a bar somewhere making 50 bucks. 
Obviously that guy hasn't punched in the right combination.

Someone compared Mariah Cary's brain to a brick but she has obviously 
punched in the right combination for her.  Was that combination supplied by 
others?  Quite possibly but at some point she made some smart decisions as 
to who would help her..  A case of putting yourself in the right place at 
the right time to meet the right people.

Rarely does someone become a star or successful (money wise) without a lot 
of hard work.  The basic talent someone has may not appeal to us as 
individuals but it's hard to argue with success.  The music field is one 
that your daddy can't buy for you although it helps if your family has 
become successful and can help you find those right buttons.  I have a sort 
of hobby and that's finding someone in commercials that are family members 
of otherwise famous people.  A well known case of this is Peter Fonda's 
kids.  Jane (Now there's a case of gigacide) and her brother both had a leg 
up in the industry and got a chance to give it a try.  I did a gig this week 
with Russ David's Kids.  (Russ was a local star who died a couple of years 
ago)  They are still at it and do quite well here in St. Louis.  They 
learned the business at their dad's knee literally and the name opens a lot 
of doors.

In any form of sales, which is what basically we are talking about, you have 
to have a product that people want and a distribution system to deliver the 
product.  I suspect that a lot of  successful singers ( instrumental 
musicians too) are multi talented people who are able to present themselves 
in such a manner that people will buy their product and are able to attract 
the people that can do it for them.

Is this smart or intelligent?  I think that there is a difference by the 
way.  That's up to you to decide but no matter what, these people are doing 
something that regrettably, many aren't able to do for whatever reason.
Larry
St. Louis

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert S. Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 5:01 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Re: Dixie Chicks

> Steve Barbone wrote, regarding the Dixie Chicks:
>
> They are far from stupid and in fact, more intelligent than most people on
> the planet.
> (snip)
>
> the rest deleted
>
>
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