Donny.....you’re living in a dream world. You need to step outside your hemisphere there and see what reality is like in other areas instead of giving advice that would be appropriate to the music scene maybe 20 years ago.

It’s not about talent anymore. The two biggest factors working against you nowadays are budgets and kids impersonating Activity Directors.

Haven’t you noticed the world is being overtaken and run almost exclusively nowadays by adolescents in their 20’s? Hotshots who have no conception about the true meaning of entertainment, the same as they have no conception of what music was like in the old days when you heard melody and not just a pulsating beat!

Music is like food. You can go to Cheap Charlie’s Chowder House and get a bland, no-frills steak, but it’s food. Or you can go to the Paris Hilton and get one done by a professional chef who will make that steak into a work of art and will make you feel satisfied long after it’s been digested. Unfortunately, many AD’s go the Cheap Charlie route now ‘cause they haven’t the faintest idea a “Paris Hilton” even exists!

And, there ain’t no one going to argue the point about “budgets.” I have this one 15 year account. The AD told me 2 years ago that they want to keep me on, but they’ve been hit with a.....BUDGET, and that I will have to drop my price to $100 and go from 12 appearances a year to 4.....1 every 3 months. My other 13 year account also dwindled down from 12 spots a year (booked yearly in advance) to 4 a year and in 2015, because of budget limitations, she’s booking by the month and I was told “we’ll call you if we can fit you in anymore!”

My one solid account is “solid” because the AD’s are middle-aged, very professional, and very experienced. She told me clearly the reason I’m there over a decade is that I play well and I interact well with the residents and that’s clearly what they want. She went on to say they are flooded with entertainers trying to work their way in. They give them one chance and watch them carefully, and most are shown the door. And, BTW, after all these years, even I’m “watched carefully” and I respect them for that!

I sometimes wonder if you ever stepped out of that domain you live in down there and tried working in the real world, would you be so quick to give out advice like you do. Unless you’re a Justin Timberlake or a Jimmy Fallon, the Camelot days of big money are somewhat over.

Mark