• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
1966 hundred bill

MAMAS DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE COWBOYS MUSICIANS

REED'S RAMBLINGS / Dennis Roger Reed

MAMAS DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE COWBOYS MUSICIANS

By Dennis Roger Reed

1966 hundred billBeing a musician is an honorable trade, but making a decent living is difficult. A very talented musician friend of mine keeps records of all the gigs he’s done. He recently reviewed his very first gig, playing with a band at a school dance in 1966. He was just a kid then, or at least that’s his story. Each musician in the band was paid $10. On a whim, he looked up what that $10 equals today. The answer was $79, more or less. Most bars/clubs that have live music with bands pay around $75 a man in the world I live in. In other words, my friend is making about the same money today as he was in 1966. Can you think of any other trade in the world that pays the same today as it did in 1966? Doctors? Lawyers? Now, I am not saying that musicians are more important than doctors and lawyers (though we all know that is true) but you can take any trade you can think of that existed in 1966 and still exists today and end up with the same concept.

Why? Well, there are lots of reasons. The main reason is that in 2019 there are vastly more ways to hear music, and vastly more ways to seek entertainment. If you were around in 1966 chances are that you only had about 6 or 7 television stations to watch. Recorded music really only came in one format, vinyl. The number of movies released annually in the US in 1966 would fit in several weeks of releases today. There’s a lot more fun stuff to do today, at least in theory.

Linn Drum MachineAlthough there are lots of venues, some areas feature less live music venues today than ever. There are more musicians today than there were in 1966, but arguably less places for them to ply their trade. DJs are very popular. Electronic tracks have replaced live musicians in a lot of areas, with bands sometimes being one player with machines providing harmony vocals, bass and drums. My personal taste for this type of live music is extremely limited. The use of looping at least allows you to see the musician play the part they are using, but my spin is I’d rather see and hear human beings. The invention of the Linn Drum Machine in the 1980s was supposed to end percussionist’s jobs forever. That did not occur for a lot of reasons, with the primary reason being that drum machines sounded like, well, machines.

Recorded music is also a poor way to make money. I recently got a direct deposit from one of the distributors that handles my recorded music sales. The last quarter of the year grossed four figures, which would be a lot more impressive if there wasn’t a period after the second number. The detail sheets run for pages and pages. Pages and pages of sales of $.02 and $.01 for digital downloads. It takes a lot of those to make four digits with a period in the middle, but luckily I had a few CD sales. These net me around $6.00 each sale. If I had to depend on music sales for food, I’d lose more weight than the 24 pounds the average Venezuelan lost last year. Imagine what it must be like to be a musician in Venezuela!

Tom Edison Recording device   tape recorder  Pandora logo

There is a silver lining to this story. If a musician is in it solely for the money, they are either in that top echelon of players who make big bucks or very sad looking at their bank account. However, most are musicians because they love music. Music is not something we choose; music chooses us. No one says we have to make money playing music, and no one says we have to play in public to enjoy music. But for those that do play in public and make recordings, it would be nice if there was a real possibility of making a living doing music. Sure, they are lots of musical folks that do make a living. But in the Americana/folk music world where I live, it’s about the hardest profession imaginable, shy of a real job. And it’s a wakeup call when you find out that musical artist you admire and whose music you love can’t afford medical insurance or a decent home. Forget about pensions, unless you are one of the few remaining union musicians. When I started performing, a good number of jobs and venues required union musicians. I cannot recall the last time I was asked to provide union staff. It certainly wasn’t in this century.

So maybe a career as a professional musician is not the best choice in 2019, but as I mentioned, music chooses us. There is some optimism to be held. With the popularity of Native American gambling casinos in the United States, a lot of musicians have a much wider field of play than in the past. Scores of popular 1966 bands have reformed due to the ability to expand their gigs beyond summer fair venues to include year round gambling casinos. Often these venues have an appreciation for both new acts and those from the sometimes distant past. I opened for the semi-psychedelic country rock band the New Riders a few years back. They had received a call from a promoter who promised a significant number of well-paid dates. All the band had to do was get along and play. And they did. Since Herman’s Hermits can sell out shows, there may be hope for all of us.

And there is a lot you can do to help. Support live music, buy recorded music and enjoy.

Dennis Roger Reed is a singer-songwriter, musician and writer. He’s released three solo CDs; appeared on two CDs with the newgrassy Andy Rau Band; three CDs with the roots rockers Blue Mama and one CD with blues roots band Suitcase Johnnie. His prose has appeared in a variety of publications such as the OC Weekly and MOJO magazine, Gram Parsons: God’s Own Singer by Jason Walker and American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary edited by Deborah Barker and Kathryn B. McKee.  Writing about his music has appeared in an eclectic group of publications such as the LA Times, Bass Player, Acoustic Musician, Dirty Linen, Blue Suede News, and Sing Out! He’s performed at venues and festivals throughout the US and Canada. He once played in a blues rock band at a Chinese restaurant on St. Patrick’s Day.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1966_hundred_bill.jpg 172 400 Steve Shapiro https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Steve Shapiro2019-03-06 11:03:272020-11-18 10:22:24

MAMAS DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE COWBOYS MUSICIANS

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Lindsey Terrell
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001-2023 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy