Be Sir Paul
Musicians and enterprises alike must connect with their customers (or audience) to remain relevant over time. Artists connect with theirs by making an emotional connection; enterprises also do well to make an emotional connection, but theirs also must be practical and move their customers closer to where they want to go. Moving the customer involves both connecting and driving the action .
By creating connection and maintaining momentum, this gentleman has remained relevant over more than 50 years, and across three and even four generations:
His music has spanned perhaps too many styles to catalog, and probably more than any individual audience member can appreciate. Still, he began with a seemingly innate talent for catchy songwriting, added a lot of hard work, and long ago compounded his own stock by mastering of the art of connecting with his audiences. I doubt this came as naturally as it appears. For my part, I believe a phenomenal amount of deliberate work and dedication went into that. Sure, talent helps, but perspective and persistent hard work are essential. The world is full of talented people who never manage to launch.
Contrast Sir Paul against the current roster of comeback ‘80s bands. Some of these groups had a fair stock of talent and ran a reasonable course before moving on to other projects. Others just flashed in the pan and went away. Several are back now, serving the market segment of children of the ‘80s who now have disposable income and a sentimental predisposition to revisit those years. OK, it could be kinda’ fun – just not my thing, although I do get a bit of pleasure from seeing one or two of my old favorites revisiting some of the material for the sheer pleasure of sharing it again.
One glaring case, though, struck me in a blaze of irony when one of my daughters was trying out her fiddle chops in a local coffee shop with a bluegrass band consisting of three guys aged more or less 60 years, and an 11 year old banjo playing, singing whiz-kid. The impromptu coffee shop jam was a load of fun, and we were all terribly proud of our kids. What took me by surprise, though, was the poster on the wall advertising the upcoming “Ham and Yam Festival” and prominently featuring one of these flash-then-gone-now-back-again bands:
In some sense, I am glad for these bands, that they have found new purpose and a renewed stream of income. That’s always a nice thing. However, it is hardly arguable that they never mastered the art or discipline of building and sustaining a sense of relevance and connection. So it becomes the amusing and sometimes pitiable case that artists who do not sustain such connection and relevance become relegated to playing free shows at local festivals. Enterprises that fail to connect and remain relevant do worse – they simply fizzle.
Be relevant. Connect. Stay relevant. Stay connected. With no particular malice to the on-again-off-again 80s stadium rockers, I say: be Sir Paul; don’t be Night Ranger.
