Let’s talk about the biggest struggles or challenges that artists encounter as performers. My own biggest struggle is: losing my voice. Here are 5 different artists and their challenges:
- Washboard Willy
He was our guest in Episode 4. He travels all the time and often looks forward to a downtime. His hardest struggle is about losing his sense of community with his own hometown, the place where he grew up. Listen and learn what it is he is struggling with and what the 3 things he does to countercheck the situation. You can find him at http:///washboardwilly.com
- Elisa Hays
She has been performing onstage for a very long time and her biggest challenge, she says, is how to be like the children who have undistracted, sharp focus on everything around them. What does she do to be like these authentically undistracted cute audience? Her website is www.elisahays.com
- Steve Hamilton (also known as Steve the Pretty Good)
Was our guest on episode 5. He said his biggest challenge is how to get booked. One day, he asked a friend for advice. His friend gave him the tools he needed. Find out what it was and how he fixed his little problem.
- Carrie Cunningham
Finding the right support team was her biggest challenge. She was trying to be everything and she reached out to different avenues. Listen to her revelation-- her solutions.
- Ken McMeans. Ken graced our episode 6. He would be away from home and on the road approximately 150 to 200
days. The hardest thing in his life and career was the balancing stuff. His wife and the children had helped him a lot.
Resources:
Please join our Facebook Group, Tailgate Entertainer where you will find the 5 performers we interviewed here. You can find them at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/201780350198420/
Through hard work and dedication to his craft, Brady has launched into the music scene with a style all his own. He talks about how he developed his own style as a unique blend of many of his music heroes.
He sharpened his musical skills day after day but his parents decided he should get formal training. Brady dreaded the idea of taking real lessons and says he had an “attention deficit disorder” when it came to structured piano lessons. He would play the piano in his own way and with awesome creativity! Brady’s dad loved the style of Jerry Lee Lewis and so did he. The diversity and creativity of Jerry Lee Lewis fed and bred Brady’s innate musical mind – from country music to jazz, and rock n roll – he improvised. Brady was born to play music and sing but he is also a great rancher and a baseball player. He was told he had a keen ear for music. Others think he has a great voice and savvy fingers on the instruments. We think he’s got all of the above.
What you’ll hear from Brady and the Tailgate Entertainer staff:
- How Brady began his musical career
- How his dad helped him become what he is today
- The musicians who influenced his music
- All his mentors and his favorite one
- How his mentor helped him become what he is today
- What he loves about the fair industry
- What else he does besides playing the piano and guitar
- What advice he wants to give to new musicians
- What is the quickest step to success, according to Brady
- He was told he had a “strong ear” for music
- He thinks it’s the way he delivers his music.
Resources
Twitter: @BradyGoss
Email: bradygoss88(at)gmail(dot)com
Our guest is Louie Foxx, a comedy magician who discovered his knack for playing tricks when he was in kindergarten. It’s the very first time in our show that a guest reads a long introspective entry from his personal journal. Louie read a lengthy entry and I’m thankful for his childish candor. In his journal, he admits to himself that he’s scared of the audience, most likely, his audience’s reaction. He also struggled to keep his speech slower and more coherent. In high school, he got really serious about making people laugh. He built and carried with him a rickety table and rode the bus into downtown to perform magic tricks on the street corner and got paid by “passing the hat”.
In 1996, the Society of American Magician voted Louie as the Best Stage Magician and Best Close-Up Magician in Minnesota. He has also been featured twice in the prestigious Linking Ring magazine which is a magazine for the 13,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Louie has also written several books about magic tricks for professional magicians.
He keeps a journal about what he did, how the audience reacted and reviews it to figure out what worked and what didn’t work. In addition, he and another performer watch each other’s shows and exchange notes. He’s come a long way since then. Today, his daughter Ella travels with him and lately also performs in his shows. He has appeared on New Day NW, Tru TV’s Guinness World Records Unleashed, Otra Movida TV in Spain, the Nationally syndicated television show How ’bout That or on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. He is also a 2-time Guinness World Record Holder and has been on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, the nationally syndicated television show How ‘Bout That, Evening Magazine, and New Day Northwest.
Louie is indeed living his childhood dream of being a magician.
Show Notes:
- What Louie’s biggest challenge is
- How he keeps up with the competition
- How he keeps himself sane by just inventing magic tricks
- What he thinks is missing from the fair industry
- Why it’s important for the fair entertainment
- We all need a variety of entertainment
- Quote: At the end of the day, we need to connect with people, not with the tricks.
- Advice: Come up with as many original tricks as you can, invent one a day, be creative.
Resources
Download Louie's One Sheet
Wow! It’s the 26th episode of Tailgate Entertainer! I’ve gone this far, more than halfway in meeting my personal commitment to the show. My personal commitment is to deliver a show every Tuesday of every week. It’s not an easy task for a guy like me, 52 years old, who works 12-15 hours a day on my regular job; and I have to add more work hours talking to our guest performers and scheduling their interview, preparing interview questionnaires, setting up the hardware, recording the actual interview, editing the audio to be able to share with you the tips, advice, strategies, and secrets of talented performing artists in the fair & entertainment industry. At this point, it’s not a revenue generator for me and I spend a couple of hundred bucks each month to produce the show so I can present the colorful lives and career of fair people. I learned I have been able to spend quality time and collect wisdom from them and how they succeeded in the fair industry; and I happily shared everything with my audience. This is one way of contributing advice to the people who may want to enter the industry to preserve and perpetuate this form of entertainment for future generations.
In this episode, I share with you:
- The reasons I created this podcast
- My life history – the role played by my stepmother Irene in making me rethink what I wanted to become as a grown up
- Why I chose the fair industry in my podcast
- My role in the fair industry - What I do for a living
- My audience – approximately 30,000 kids attend these shows
- A new product that is coming soon which is actually a by-product of this show
- How much doggone work this podcast is-- I don’t earn any revenue from it yet I spend about two hundred bucks each month to produce it
- Sometimes I go hungry or fall asleep with fatigue while working on the show
- The difference between a podcast and a live show – in a live show, I get instant feedback and see the immediate reaction of my audience. I know what they like and what they don’t like whereas, in a podcast, feedback isn’t immediate and sometimes I don’t even get your feedback. I don’t know if you like my show and what you want to listen to and know. Although the show is downloaded in 9 different countries, unless I get your feedback, I won’t know how you like my show.
- Society has benefited positively from the entertainment provided by the fair industry –it helps build one's sense of self, country, belief system, and culture.
- Fair and circuses today present acrobatic performances and exhibitions of skill, strength, and daring
- Fairs often require immense numbers of performers and even complicated and expensive machinery.
- The importance of the fair industry - Fairs are unique in our country. They are a reflection of our Communities--a place where people can be entertained, educated, and experience new things
- Fairs can teach children valuable skills, even life skills
- Fairs can teach children how to raise animals, care for them, and train them tricks
- The fair serves a great purpose-- a positive impact on our society, county, and state fairs
- I’m not quite sure I could continue maintaining this show but I do want to keep it going
- I love the fair industry for a lot of reasons. Do you?
Thank you for listening. Thanks for your time. Please help support this podcast by subscribing to Tailgate Entertainer on Itunes . The show’s life is in your hands. Do pick your favorite episode and share it with your family and friend. Send me your feedback, too. You can contact me directly at Tailgate Entertainer website. Join our Facebook group: Facebook
Thanks again. :)