I've been playing accordion professionally for a very long time, and I really understand where you're coming from. Many of my friends and loved ones wanted me to go to school to be a musician and I just couldn't do it. It wasn't something that I wanted to do for myself. The thought was that if it became a job, it wouldn't be fun anymore. Now I wish I could go back and slap myself and put myself straight. I may not have liked the style of music I was playing, but music is music and to be so lucky as to play it for a living...if I was given that opportunity now, I would take it in a heartbeat. To me style shouldn't matter, like the Reverend Says:

And no matter how bad you feel,
When those house lights go down,
A smile lights up your face
Why? 'cause that's showbiz.

Is it polka that's giving you the accordion blues?

I think it was Thelonius Monk said, the second time you play it, it's fake(my version of what he said), I'm not a fake Cajun when I butcher a cajun song on my box, I'm a Jawja boy that found a goldmine of a musical heritage(me not being in the line). It's my attitude that shows appreciation and respect for a people and their property. When I play Miss-delta blues, yeah they'd listen more intently if I was black, but I ain't, therefore I just have to try harder. No matter how good one gets with delivery, some even way better than the original(not me!), there will always be those that choose to place their first step of sizing you up as a player/performer on the prejudice stepping stone.
When I heard Courtney Granger sing George Jones' "Somebody Wants Me Out Of The Way", I didn't think, **** here's a cajun being a fake hillbilly, I indeed was thankful for the "how to sing from the heart" lesson, indeed I just wanted to roll around in the dust because it was so good.
Therefore: my sum is, it's the heart that maters. If a cajun band plays a Dewey Balfa song, it's a cover. If I play one it's a cover(will never make me cajun).
I had a club owner ask me after playin' in his joint, that next time he'd like to hear "This Bar", he had the strangest look when I said "I don't do Toby Keith", there's many I won't do because I can't get 'em in my heart and let 'em roll around a little.
If he would have asked me to do a Johnny Cash song that I didn't know, I would have gone to the woodshed and got it down.
so blah blah blah, pass the pizza, **** these fake italians makin' bad pie.

When I was in college, I refer to myself as a born again student because I didn't go to college until I was 41 years old, the big deal on campus was "cultural diversity". I kept trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about and then one day it hit me. Come sing and dance for us, cook for and serve us your ethnic drinks, then go home. Needless to say it became a hot discussion in the classes that I brought it up in but I made my point. Racism has many flavors. Voting for someone because of skin color is racism, paying more attention to some to someone's music because of skin color is racism. Rick has found a way to bottle and sell his talents and that deserves a round of applause.
Le Piquant

"Life is like a box of sh*t, your always pretty sure of how it's going to smell" - Forest Jimbo

Good'n Jimbo! Maybe I got off track with my initial reply. No, I got way off track. I've got a bit of a soapbox when it comes to being a Texan who loves thy neighbor more than thy should. I've spoke my peace on that.

I've never had to make music for a living. I seriously doubt I ever will. It's a creative outlet which enriches my life. I've learned a lot of things about music and people along the way... some good... some bad.

I would have to share the ranks of the upper echelon of C/Z box pullers in order to maintain the cost of my lifestyle -- and that ain't gonna happen. I admire the humble guys who have the gift of music and share it with the rest of the world, especially those who only have [that] to share and nothing else. But even most of the worshipped pioneers that we all hail here on the board had another job that brought in a predictable income. They were oil industry workers, farmers, lumbermen, etc.

I like the Thelonious Monk quote a lot. That's genius and true. Dig it.

I think once you get beyond the point of playing music for yourself, you open the door to a hallway with many rooms that contain every conceivable pleasure and pain. You'll find your ego on the first door on the left so please walk softly as you enter. Your soul is directly across the hall, but it's unmarked and not very well lit -- so it may take some searching to find it. You'll find friends and enemies a couple of doors down -- be careful not to shut those doors all the way because they may lock you out and there's no key for them. Oh, and money is that green room all the way down the hall at the end. Mind your step -- don't trip and fall along the way.

R!CK

Thank you everybody I will take these opinions and advice and treat them wisely.

Rick; your dad wouldn't happen to be called Nonc Dave? There was a gentleman named Nonc Dave who occasionally posted on this site and your wit reminds me of him. I really miss Nonc Dave.

Dear Rick,

". . . Louisiana cover tune from an Alabama mother loon."? LOL!

I wish I could walk around in your head for a while. It'd be better than DisneyLand!

And BTW, playing your own thang is a courageous act, especially around the traditionalists. Rock on Brother!

Jamey, I'm just a cornflake lookin' for some milk. We need to plan another E-Ticket adventure. That accordion convention here only gave us time to barely put a hook in the water. Can't wait to hear what you playing now -- bet it's great!

Okay, that's enough for now. It's nearly beer:30.

~R!CK

Hehe, right on, Kirk. I miss Nonc D, too! I can be just as long-winded, introspective and verbose as he. I'm just glad you Braves put up with me and my occasional windy **********

I'm good now. How 'bout that Bosco Stomp, eh?!

~R!CK

Would that be the jam breaker or the thread breaker?
Le Piquznt

Well, perhaps yes perhaps no.
Nonc D is on the globe, but has been tied to an extensive amount of writing in the past year. Book one (of seven books) has been completed. At this time he is in the middle of book two and yet maping the contents for book three and four.

Where's Nonc?

Who, what, when and where? I've got to have it! Nonc D's book that is.

Who is Nonc D
Le Piquant

Nonc-D, not me, alas ...
I've been surviving in the (folk) music bizzimess occasionally thanks to a few tricks learned in the past. Have a quick ear and be instantly and immediately able to play the fake-it-along-blues as you're hired as a stand in muso.

And for better and for worse: i picked up a musical saw years ago on a tour in the 70-ies in wintertime-freezing-dark-again-at-4PM-Sweden. Also the first LP Opus3 label recording job with our jazzy-jugband (crooks, link#2, old band line up).

That was a quite funny trip too, the recording location was the Unholy church hall owned by the renown Bofors weapon industry company, and the only other interesting thing for us in town was a music store of a very Christian Type; selling huge and awfully cheap looking expensive electric organs, and pre-Japanese times triplex Spanish guitars. OK an occasional recorder-flute.

Well, with all the dough we earned i simply had to spend it on something affordable; a beer was too frigging expensive there and then, and not a bar town or even miles around. The only decent thing & souvenir to me was a Sandvik Stradivarius on the wall of this reli-shop, looking at me radiating: "Help, help, get me out of here, i'm in Hell-freezes-over-land, scouts honor (to me a quote from good ole Korea war dodger and therefor turned Belgian, alas deceased now, Deroll Adams), i promise you my soul and that we're going to have some fun together !!! ".

PS We just had met Derroll at a folkfestival in Luxemburg back then, great guy, super entertainer, and tons of wit and humor:



Back to the gig-saw: Got some nice jobs in studio and theater land through the years professionally with this devilish lady; we have a true love hate relation. You can practice your a r s e off on a fiddle, accordion, whatever, but the frigging saw gets you the best bags of musical money and rounds of applause alas, anywhere, anytime, any-gig. For you Saulieu hang about the Parisian cafe Humans and cajun share-croppers: i promise to bring her along, but for only one song: "j'ai passe devant la porte", with Ron on accordion and singing. For NOTHING ELSE i swear !!

PS Now i wonder if i loaded my life and times karma with too much negativene energy thanks to this she-devil; she can't even cut balsa wood i tell ya' .... Nout

This stuff is what this confound computer was invented for. Now, I'm gonna cut my fake pizza with a musical saw, (OH, I pressed the dough out with my D box). thanks to all of ya'll for giving me a reason to light up this machine.

Forgot! I ordered my Big Nick DVD yesterday so that I can get better at my fake playin'.
Ya'll have a marvelous weekemd.

13starT... right on...

Interesting topic.

As a so-called "pro", I play songs and tunes nowadays that, long ago, I wouldn't even consider to do. But through the years I have learned to respect all kinds of music I didn't care about first, and - even more important - to respect other people's tastes.
My task is playing music to make people happy , and that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I get payed for it too, so I'd better do my best.
I admit, sometimes I have to "fake" a bit, but when I do, it's with tongue in cheek, or I adapt the words of the song to the occasion... it all depends on the actual situation.
Being a professional musician is a job and not much more than that. The romantic idea that it is a higher vocation to spread beauty, truth, a higher message and all that, is for people who don't have a clue what it means to make a living as a musician/entertainer.
Maybe it goes for some classical musicians (but even Mozart was an entertainer, albeit a good one) or some singers/musicians with some higher spiritual vocation. (but beware of fake, especially in this last category)
Most of the Cajun musicians we admire: Iry Lejeune, Nathan Abshire, you name them, did mainly the same thing as I: playing at parties - mainly trads or other people's songs - and making sure everybody had a good time.
And what about the Blues? The most romanticized of all American music?
Robert Johnson, the Greatest Legend of all, the Man Who Sold His Soul To The Devil At The Crossroads Etc. Etc. was known to be singing Bing Crosby stuff and all kinds of other popular songs of the time if the people wanted that. Was he a fake?
By the way: I'm not a professional Cajun musician. I'm a 100% amateur! And I love it!
Have fun!