Suffering For Your Art: Do You Really Have To?

Well, the short answer is "NO!" Of course not!

Some years back, more than I care to admit, I was on the road with a big band. We traveled by bus from one town to another, playing colleges, ballrooms, and sometimes fancy supper clubs. There were 18 male musicians on this bus, and me, "The Chick Singer", as they called us back then.

Life on the road with these guys was anything but glamorous. On the contrary, the musicians I traveled with, while immensely talented, were what was called in the 60's, "road rats", that is sidemen who have nothing to show for their lives but their horns and suitcases full of a variety of drugs and a bunch of hotel receipts. One might think that these excellent musicians were a just a down and out bunch trying to make a living with their instruments, but they were not down and out at all. They loved their life!

What they loved most was that they were "suffering". And they each thought that by suffering, they were being true to their art. I would say that they even thought that somehow, their suffering, being away from home for months at a time, away from their families, living on pills and booze, that someday it would pay off for them.

Quite often, at the end of a gig in some town, we'd find a hole-in-the-wall all night joint where we could jam. Someone would get up and start playing his horn, and the piano player would stroll up to the stage, then the bass player, then the drummer, and of course, I never missed my chance. Heck, I was 19 and wanting more than anything to fit in with these legends of jazz, the names I had read in the liner notes of my favorite jazz albums, and to be taught by them. And I was! But not as you might think.

I remember one trumpet player talking to a newer member of the band, a young sax player one night at one of these jam sessions. He was telling this kid, age 17, who played an outrageous sax, that if he really wanted to be a great player, he would have to suffer. He would have to put his young wife on the street to make a living while he practiced. He would have to live in a hovel, and never pay his bills on time. I saw the look on Pete's face. (that was the name of the young sax player). He looked incredulous! I could see he wasn't buying the trumpet player's pitch.

So I approached him and had to yell above the din,

"You don't think you have to suffer to be great, do you, Pete?"

"Hell no!" he shouted back to me.

"These guys are just road rats. I got dreams, and I have a plan to make them into realities, and it doesn't include putting my wife out on the street, or becoming a bum like the rest of these guys. Gimme 2 years and I'll be playing in Doc Severinson's band on the Johnny Carson Show!"

Less than a year after I got off the road and settled down in Southern California with my trombone player husband, we happened to be sitting at home watching the Tonight Show, and there was our old friend Pete Christlieb on TV, playing lead saxophone in Doc Severinson's Band. We looked him up and went to dinner at his home Beverly Hills where he lived with his wife, the proud winner of several Grammy Awards for Jazz, and living an abundant, prosperous and fulfilling life of music. His dreams had indeed materialized.

No, my friends. You don't need to suffer to be great! You DO need a goal, a vision, a dream of all dreams, AND a PLAN to make all your dreams come true.

And for those of you who really truly want to make it big in the music business, remember that it IS a business, and you'll have to be level-headed, determined, and after all the work has been put into the product, which is your song and your voice, you must treat your pursuit like a business. I have seen too many talented people break their own hearts with false conceptions about what an artist is. My own sweet husband, a wonderful trombonist, died unfulfilled after having "suffered" for his art for all of his life. And why? Because he couldn't see that music was a business and that he had to approach it that way.

So be strong, singers! Yes, be artists! Be inspirational! Get your audiences yearning for your next live show, but when it comes to furthering your art form, and selling it to record companies or producers, be ALL BUSINESS!