Following Rick is always a bad move, as many people after him on a bill would probably attest, but the topic is interesting to a non-musician! I know something about two related businesses, theatre and poetry, and in both those cases, it is a combination of at least 3 of the things already mentioned by people above. Thousands of people write poetry, but only a very few are poets; same is true of acting -- very few real actors out there. It requires reverence for the materials (the craft, the voice, vowels, the consonants), reverence for the traditions you are hopefully building on (Rick's history) not as traditions, but as resources, previous struggles with the stuff by people who were at least as talented as you are. Third, that incredible driving committment that shows up in the product -- the total presence of everything you are, in the work, without holding back. A fourth thing, which may be what a lot of people envy, and which is usually a product of the other three, is a kind of relaxation that comes with the ability -- born of infinite effort -- not to be submerged by the myriad demands of your art. It is that easy spaciousness that drives all us non-everythings crazy!!!!
yours, Peter T.