vinceconaway | The Big Picture: comparing my career arc to the Rolling Stones (Reply)

John and Mitchy were gettin' kind of itchy
Just to leave the folk music behind
-Creeque Alley, The Mamas and the Papas

I'm reading Keith Richards' autobiography and it's fantastic so far. For me the most fascinating part of any career, but especially music careers in the sixties, is the point when there is a transition from copying to creating. The Stones started off as a hard core blues band before Mick and Keith started writing, and reading about how that change was made strikes very close to home since I'm at a similar point in my own life.

This is a process that most bands go through, even today, but in the sixties a lot of them were coming from folk and blues backgrounds, rather than covering earlier generations of rock n rollers. Coming from a traditional background myself, in Irish music, there's a lot more resonance to me than more recent musical trajectories.

I'm at a point now where my North American repertoire is about 60% Celtic trad, 30% original, and 10% medieval. I'm pretty pleased with that, though my eventual ambition is to get it to at least 50% originals. Even after 12 years I'm still finding what clicks with audiences, which is why I keep so much Irish music in the mix as I expand my catalog.

My European repertoire, on the other hand, is closer to 75% original, 20% medieval, and about 5% Celtic. I'm incredibly happy about that, which is a big part of why I love busking so much (and the being in Europe part doesn't exactly suck, either). It's been suggested that I'd do well by learning opera and classical music, which is probably true but seems like it would be a step backwards in the bigger picture.

I'm not looking to duplicate the success of the Stones (that much fame and money seems like a lot more hassle than my current lifestyle), but I like to think I can reach that point as a composer/performer.