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| Sean Cotton Live At Hunters Bay Radio 4/12/18 |
Last Thursday night, local musician, producer, singer / songwriter, Sean Cotton took the Home Depot stage to perform on the Hunters Bay
Radio “Live Drive” show, hosted by my friend “Silver Lake” Joe Thompson. I
don’t get out to see live music as often as I’d like, but I am fortunate to attend
a live concert almost every Thursday night before my “Lyrical Workers” show.
Sean is one of the first musicians with whom I made contact when I moved up
here. Four or five years after we first met, we’ve finally recorded some of
my songs together. He’s a good producer, and recently, “Mend”, one of the three songs we produced together, is currently
climbing the Hunters Bay Radio Top 20 chart.
Sean moved up to this area shortly before Shauna and
I did. For twenty years he had been in a successful band known as The Undesirables, co-writing with the very
talented Toronto writer, Corin Raymond. Eventually, Sean elected to give up
the road in favor of his family. Anybody who has ever fantasized about being on the road with a band has probably not lived that “dream”.
I know plenty of excellent musicians out there busting their humps touring, and the job
is not all it’s cracked up to be. Unless you’re very successful, which few are, with a crew, a manager, a booking agent, etc., you’re likely driving yourself to gigs, loading your
own equipment in and out, and playing a lot of under-attended venues and bar dates wherein people are not listening to your music. All the while you are dealing with the soul-sucking life of a touring musician.
Sadly, I think the music business is only getting
harder, and about the only way for and artist to succeed is to tour constantly, or to be fortunate enough to place original songs
in movies or television. Digital platforms like Spotify and ITunes do
not fairly compensate artists for their recordings, and for the vast majority
of artists, the process of performing original music is not a living, but rather a difficult
labor of love. This is one of many reasons why I never had the courage to
pursue music as a career. Over the years, I may have developed as a songwriter, but
I’ve never considered myself a strong performer. I was quickly apprised of the
field in which I would be competing, and I did not like my odds. Perhaps I
could have eked out a living, but there are many more talented artists out there
competing for the same piece of the pie. I once wallpapered a room in my
Buffalo apartment with rejection notices from various publishers and labels.
When we first moved up here to the Almaguin Highlands,
I figured moving so far north of Toronto would nix any possibility of recognition.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I have achieved more
recognition for my song writing up here than I would have ever achieved in a
big city. I couldn’t get arrested in Buffalo; no one showed any interest in my songs, and Toronto was
simply saturated with talent. Up hear, I found an artist-friendly radio station, music lovers who listen to and appreciate unknown artists, and the respect of my songwriting peers.
After his performance last Thursday night, Sean presented
me with a box full of CDs he’d collected over the years, mostly comprised of obscure Canadian
artists, many of them from the Toronto area. He thought I might like some of
the music to air on my show. Yesterday, as the ice storm raged outside, I took
a few hours to sort through some of them, and I previewed about 40-50 songs by
various artists. Much of this music was, in my opinion, mediocre, but some of
it was really good. I love the hunt. My bar has been raised substantially after 3 years hosting
a show about songwriting. One CD I played really resonated with me. Entitled “Groovy
Mondays” it is a compilation of live performances from the Toronto club Holy
Joe’s. Every song on the CD is a winner, and I was only familiar with two of
the nineteen artists.
With all the chatter in my head, it’s getting harder and
harder to really listen, to music, to family members, to people who are wiser or
more talented than I. Listening to the above-mentioned live album reminded me why I love
music so much, and it was a lovely, peaceful moment in an otherwise lousy week.
I love hearing something so fresh and beautiful that
it takes me by surprise. Thanks to all the artists out there who have written
wonderful songs but who have perhaps not reached their audience. Yet. Talent and
recognition rarely go hand in hand. I choose to gauge success
by the former not the latter. To all those talented artists out there scraping to make ends meet, keep writing your songs, you
never know who is listening. Your songs may outlive the myopic public to whom you present them.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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