People ask me how long I'm going to keep playing music (folk and gospel.) I tell them "as long as I can afford to lose money." I didn't start out playing music to lose money, but it was easy to learn. If I really counted the travel expenses, meals on the road and strings, instruments, etc. and figured out how many times I play music as a gift, I'd really know just how much it costs to be a musician. Not how much it pays. Every once in awhile I stumble into a well paying gig, but more often than not the pay barely covers the cost of performing. That's why folk musicians sleep on the living room couch with the Cocker Spaniel, rather than staying at the cheapest local motel. Funny thing is, that's alright with me. Most coffee houses stay afloat because the organizers and friends of the series eat their own expenses of feeding and putting up musicians and making long distance calls that are never reimbursed. If they didn't, most coffee houses would fold pretty quickly.

To me, that doesn't make my music, or others "purer." It means that we do it out of love, though.

I kinda like that.

Jerry