Rhiannon Giddens Instagram – While we are talking about the plight of the working class musician I wanted to highlight a new and exciting organization called www.thefanalliance.org – on their front page they say:
“Music needs fans and fans need music.
Music, like all art, is essential for a healthy democracy and a healthy nation.
It connects us to each other, to our common history and, as Rosanne Cash says, music is “the premier service industry for the heart and soul. We cannot survive without music.”
I know some of the folks behind this and they are awesome. You will find concrete ways to help, and also ways to think about how the problem is systemic and also individual. Folks in power do what folks in power do, which is to often continue skewing the system to concentrate wealth more and more at the top, and those problems have to be handled on levels that involve larger systems that need input from everybody. But we make many individual choices every day that impact the lives of working musicians, and it’s good to look at what we can do in the concrete and short term as well as the idealistic and long term. Knowing what the problems are is the beginning.
Spread the word. Change starts with us.
Pic (for engagement, naturally) is from the day of Aoife’s first gig as an aware being – headphones for noise levels, and lanyard for cuteness. We had no nanny and lived on one income (my wonky income as a musician at the beginning of her career) so that Mike could come on tour with us. And this was still a blessing and a privilege because he was willing and able to do it, and we were healthy. Still, they were the hardest years of my life – but I wouldn’t change a thing. | Posted on 26/Jan/2024 00:16:58
