WOW! Gary is right. Let's forget this one. Excuse me for trying to bring a little bit of social consciousness to our part of the music business.

OF COURSE YOU CAN PLAY MEANINGFUL MUSIC THAT AFFECTS LIVES ON AN ARRANGER....harmonica....whatever!

Of all people here. I would have thought that Gary would be more aware of the social and strong media driven impact of entertainers and other celebrities. Roosevelt was the first president to recruit media people to influence/contribute to national P/R efforts enforcing the war effort. Now, the use of musicians and celebrities is at the core of many P/R efforts. Outside organizations and the celebrities themselves leverage
their appeal and recognition/believability factor to affect awareness and change. Celebrity endorsements are BIG.

What about the USO? What about people who work for/play in Philharmonic orchestras? What about the National Endowment for the Arts? Are these and similar efforts to educate the public about music just wasted efforts? I DON'T THINK SO! Even on a local level, recognition and popularity can be leveraged to do good. I donate the proceeds from one gig a week to my Nursing Home Reform group. I play and speak once a month at social clubs to promote nursing home reform. I have a guitar program for disadvantaged kids that introduces music to 40 kids a semester. Recently, I have been talking to the principles about involvement in the Les McCann School for the Arts. I am a feature in Philharmonic "tributes" designed to introduce/educate the public about certain aspects of music and or historic players who contributed to the art form and entertained the world. In EVERY CASE, I'm leveraging my "recognition factor".

Let's get back on track. "Man, I Killed EM at my nursing home gig last night."

NOT!


Russ

Excuse me for getting a little hot. This is a really important and very personal topic to me. I'll either use the bar for future rants or just not bother.