I had a most interesting experience this past week. I had an old friend and professional blues artist stay with us for the first time in eleven years. The life of a professional musician and entertainer mirrors our own. We see tabloids and articles that lead us to believe they have a glamorous life that we don’t. It is true they rise late somewhere near noon but then they are active until five or six in the morning.
Pat Savage is a musician, producer, song writer lyricist and businessman. His day is filled with talking to investors and right now they are raising capital for a new world wide television series seeing the world on a motorcycle. Calls coming in from Spain, Italy, Poland, Norway the United States, Japan and Cuba.
In the middle of it all Pat decided to play some on line poker and won four hundred bucks while talking to a business partner in London.
Word travels fast in the circle as well and soon former musicians and friends he worked with in the past started calling. By the end of the week there were enough of them to go socialize somewhere.
Here is the difference. When eleven or eleven- thirty comes, you and I start thinking about sleep. Musicians like Pat Savage start thinking about their next album. He took off the business hat and put on the Savage Works International Hat.
Over the course of the week together Pat and I roughed out a new album. He wanted something different. I wrote the lyrics he wrote the music. There will be some minor adjustments but we set the tracks for production. At first we didn’t have enough selections by Thursday night we had too many and will have to save a few for another production. This compilation will feature some blues, a couple of country and a few soft rock tunes. What we envisioned is something without electric guitars or heavy pounding metal. By next week the beginning of an album will start in Italy and or Spain.
For those who read the tabloids the fact is their life is like yours. Instead of driving to work everyday they fly around Europe raising money playing gigs (concerts) and getting tired of travel and missing family.
All in all it was an education to be sure and a grounding of thought as it were. For us all, what we have has to be earned and it takes a lot of hard work.
You and I are better off in many ways, we get time with family and have a chance to spend time with grand children. Musicians have a creative passion that drives them on. The next concert, the next episode is like a fix, and the hectic pace of preparation is staggering.
His lifestyle reminded me of a fishbowl I saw in a shopping mall. I can truthfully say I am glad its not me….
Fred Steele © 2019
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