CAJUN COUNTRY SINGER SONGWRITER
After you’ve been playing enough years, you discover the difference between playing a song and experiencing a song. That was a big breakthrough for me. When I’m on stage or in the studio and everything’s right, in good voice and the guitar is like an extension of my body, that’s magical, almost spiritual. . . . What’s bad is when you haven’t broken through to a higher level, when you’re still in the trenches, it’s tough. I’m 63 and some nights I’m playing places where all I’m making is tip money. I’m a grown man with a grown man’s bills and because I chose this life, I’m playing this place for tips. That’s frustrating. There’s something unhealthy about that, an emptiness. I had expectations, but the closest thing to a game plan I had was that as long as I kept pouring my heart out on stage, at some point somebody would see it and hear it and that would lead to a better level.
What we’re trying to do is important to us. We have to play. I enjoy it when I see what I’m doing resonates with people; I like those situations where they are there to hear what I say and do. But it’s harder to find those venues. The business I fell in love with as a little boy has changed so much. Vince Gil pointed out that his single is worth 99 cents today, the cost of a download. I can download an app that makes fart noises for 99 cents, so what does that say about the value put on creative?