I find myself agreeing both with the POV of our friend from Scotland and Marc's Nashville POV. I think Marc clearly understands how Nashville is put together and he knows that getting major artist interested in your music requires access. People who play fair, don't make enemies; who are generous and nice get access. Once you have access, you still have to have deliver the goods.

But music is universal and it has no boundaries and no rules. If Jim can make a living in Scotland playing music, he has accomplished an objective if that was ever his objective. On the other hand, if Jim wrote and recorded a country album and wanted to sell a million copies in the USA, he might have to go through Nashville to make it really big- like perhaps the most famous country music outsider today, Kieth Urban.

Urban was a bit of a prodigy-very good when very young- and he made a big splash in the Australian country music scene early but always had his sight on Nashville. He built career bridges to Nashville before he recorded, and eventually moved there. He was vastly talented and unique but it still took the right timing and cultural readiness before his unique combination of rowdy Austrian Pub Rock country style and Mark Knopfler inspired licks translated into a career as a Nashville country star.

I bet Marc watched it all happen there in Nashville as Keith Urban did session work and tagged along on concert tours with the likes of Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Dwight Yoakam. As talented as he was, he didn't just drop into town one day and become a superstar (as he was in Australia). He, first of all, loved the music tradition in Nashville. Then he learned the game as it was played there. I don't think he ever resented it. He was so talented that Garth Brooks, Dixie Chicks and others ask him to play on their albums. So I am sure from his point of view, it was all good. I don't think he was calculating how to make the "right" friends in high places. But if you stop to think how much work it took for a talent as gifted and Keith Urban to make it in Nashville, it will give you some idea of how difficult it must be for someone with talent less than his. And now if I understand what Marc is saying, Nashville isn't even looking for stars that haven't already been promoted on contest like American Idol. And that makes sense because if the talent has already been promoted, that is money a producer doesn't have to spend.

On the other hand, Nashville is not the Alpha and Omega of music- even country music. There's plenty of avenues to a career in music and it is still wonderful that careers of all kinds are possible in music. What I still wonder sometimes however is this: Does the very best players, writers, performers singers etc always rise to prominence or are the very best more likely to be heard only in a local pub or on a back porch. I'd love to know the answer to that question.




"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein