Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
Almost got there ourselves, but the contract the record company offered was so bad our manager tried to make it better for us, and Motown looked elsewhere for someone to exploit.


And if you had gotten "there", what would you have been playing? I didn't think Motown signed cover bands.

A band I was in was once offered a gig at The Front Row, a venue in the round I have mentioned several times. I refused to play it. I am NOT going to open for a major star and play copy music. I would have been embarrassed to a degree I can't even explain to play a real concert and play bar music.

Does a race car driver have to know how to build a car? Nope! But wouldn't it be beneficial or him to know HOW to build a car so he can diagnose how it feels when he is driving it? By the inverse logic, the guys building the engine don't have to know how to drive 220 mph. But it would be an accomplishment to know how to do so.

I got into this to become a huge star. I didn't even become a small twinkle. I failed miserably. I believe it takes a different kind of skill to write songs than to play them. I never wanted to be one or the other. I wanted to be both. The list of people who didn't write is of no value to me. All I can say is that as huge a star as Anne Murray was, I can say I am a better songwriter than Anne Murray, because she never wrote a song. Ronstadt wrote 3, none by herself. Stevie Nicks biggest hits were co-written (wink wink) by Petty and Henley. Prince essentially wrote Stand Back but didn't push for credit.

The bottom line is that I never got a song onto a radio station, even college radio, and I am going to die musically unfulfilled because of that. That was my goal, to have songs on the radio so everybody in America could hear MY SONGS, MY STORIES, as they drove home from work. That goal got lower and lower. It moved to strong rotation on college stations. Then just ONE college station. The closest I have come is Graham played on one his show. I failed, and I know it, and I just have to live with it. And eventually die with it, because obviously it isn't going to happen now that I stopped trying. Even knowing that there are millions of people like me who dreamed about being a huge star, but the odds of that happening are less than winning the lottery. And winning the lottery doesn't require any talent.

Add to all of that failure having to live with the demoralizing pain of knowing my father died (in 1991) disappointed in who and what I became... Well, life has been a challenge.

Last edited by eddie1261; 05/24/21 07:01 AM.