The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #99963 Message #1999529
Posted By: Jerry Rasmussen
17-Mar-07 - 12:51 PM
Thread Name: It isn't 'Folk', but what is it we do?
Subject: RE: It isn't 'Folk', but what is it we do?
When I was young, I thought that talent would be heard. If you were good enough to be recorded, you would be. If you were a good writer, you would get published. Now, I'm older and wiser. People record music to sell it. Same with books. If there is no mass market for your music or writing, no matter how brilliant you may be, no one is going to make money off of your work. Ask Van Gogh or the endless number of brilliant visual and performing artists who struggled in obscurity. The correlation between talent and commercial success is tenuous, at best. To quote my old friend Gordon Bok: "Is no "should," is just "is." Commerce and art are strange bedfellows.