Performer A and Performer B have identical amounts of talent. Peformer A makes it on radio, TV, etc.("A is lucky, oh so lucky")* and B doesn't. Why? Tom's outlined many of the variables: being in the right place at right time or making the effort to being there, knowing the right people or making the effort to know the right people, fitting the current fashion or adapting yourself to fit it. I've known, and do know, many wonderful performers who will get little or no hearing in the professional music business, not only because of the variables above, but probably also because they don't have a burning ambition to make it whatever that entails - or personal circumstances have conspired to make it difficult. That's life.

Here's a personal anecdote:

The most money I've made on a regular, pay-the-rent basis, from music is while playing in a 1950s, hard-core rock'n roll trio from around 1982 to 1995. We had an agent and we played every social club, British Legion, Trades & Labour Club, Con Club, etc. in a hundred mile radius. We played dinner dances once a month at the Old Ship Hotel in Brighton. We did birthday parties and the occasional wedding reception. We did support stints on tours with people like Showaddywaddy and Bernie Flint (anyone remember Bernie Flint?). And - best of all - we played for unreconstructed, middle-aged Teds and their wives in the Swan in Worthing. This where we saw some of the best jiving ever to be seen - and received the straightest and most up front criticism if we hadn't played something quite right!

All this was at a time when '50s rock'n roll (nothing later than 1961...) was deeply unfashionable. We got by because, even though I say it myself, we were bloody good. In fact, we were shit hot - we looked great, we sounded great - and we put it across.

Why did it end for me? Several reasons. Doing the same music solidly for 13 years with little variation became a drag. Then there were the tours - as Charlie Watts said about touring with the Stones: 10% playing and 90% hanging around. Then were the Showcases! If you don't know what a Showcase is, it's a freebie put on for potential bookers by agents. The agents book a venue, bring entertainers from their stable to perform one after another, while the bookers get wined and dined and take notes. Utterly dispiriting and boring - like being a whore sitting in a window for hour after hour with no trade. The last straw was when our agent got permission for us to use the name of a long defunct but well-known band (because the drummer had played with them briefly). So - we were going to change our name, step up to a higher level, become part of the 'you-know-the-name-of-these-has-beens' circuit - playing themed rock'n roll weekends at holiday camps in midwinter, etc. In short, taking us away from the roots of what we were doing.

I quit - with relief and joined a Memphis/Stax-style funk band in Brighton. No money but back to the roots. So, just another showbiz story of Mr. Average, the jobbing musician. But - and here's the point: I needn't have quit. I could have pushed and pushed again, made some more contacts, switched agents, got on the blower to this person and that person, talked the talk...

And, do you know - I couldn't be arsed.

*Gilbert and Sullivan