We were lucky to catch up with Pat Reedy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Pat, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Most of the people I know who play music for a living seem to have started young, either they come from a family of musicians or started in band class of some sort when they were schoolchildren. Not me, I learned on the street. Literally. I was a homeless street performer. I got into trouble in my hometown and head to leave, penniless with nothing but backpack with a blanket in it. I don’t think I even had photoidentification. I hitchhiked down to New Orleans with a hippy girl I had met and ended up squatting in abandoned buildings in the 9th ward. An eccentric old drunk man gave me a beat up guitar that needed some work, so I fixed it and started playing in the French Quarter for passing tourists. I usually played on Bourbon Street; the benefit of this street was that it was so loud that hardly anyone could hear how awful I was. I knew 5 chords and played constantly. I met other seasoned buskers (this is the proper term for street performers.) These were people who had been doing it since before I was born and some took me under their wing, teaching me a lot. It was exciting. I felt like I had been born again, given a new chance at life. I later graduated to Decatur Street and then Royal Street, then on to bars. I live in a house now, of course, and my wonderful wife and I pay the mortgage together. I’ve since toured in every state except Hawaii, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, UK, and Ireland. I’ve made a living doing the thing that I love.
I can still recall the time on the street, though. As rough as it generally was, it was also one of the happiest times of my life. It was a new beginning, a time when I stepped outside of what I had done and went for broke, which isn’t terribly hard to do if you are indeed already broke. Perhaps I was fortunate in that I had no other option but to put my whole effort into doing something that I believed in. There is nothing about it that I would change.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a former street performer and full time band leader, songwriter and singer. I write and sing country songs.
My band is Pat Reedy & The Longtime Goners.
You can find me at www.patreedymusic.com

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I’m a musician. I can’t speak for other types of artists, many of whom live a more solitary life. The way I look at it, we should be having the time of our lives.
No, it isn’t always fun.
I make my living on the road, and the road is full of hazards, unknowns. There are bad shows, there are times when we lose money on a run. There are times when I’ve had to fight mean drunks, been stolen from, been on my back in the dirt in a thunderstorm next to my drummer lowering the fuel tank of the van down onto our chests so we could change out the fuel pump on the side of the road and hopefully make the next gig.
But it is worth it to do what we love.
One of my pedal steel players once said to me, “Pat, has it ever occurred to you that we are essentially monkeys that travel around and do magic tricks for other monkeys? That’s about what we do. ‘Oh look at me! I made these sounds, did you like them?’ It’s insane, really.”
When phrased like that, I can’t help but compare it to all of the other things I have done for work:
mining;
oil drilling;
heavy equipment operating;
hauling roofing shingles on my shoulder up a ladder in the Texas heat.
Music is better.
And even if I’m not as successful as some of my friends, the fact that I got to do this at all is remarkable. I made a living playing my music, making art.
Those of us so fortunate shouldn’t forget it.
We should be having the time of our lives.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Individuals can tip the band, they can pay the extra to buy the real painting, not a print. Buy an album, hat or shirt, whatever.

Society as a whole should vote for politicians who would support the arts with state programs like Canada and every other developed nation has. Art is needed by society, and if it is a privilege solely afforded to the children of the wealthy then this will severely limit the volume and quality of art available.

Also, art scenes come from cheap rent. It is as simple as that. When artists are working all hours to afford their inflated rent in whatever place that has become trendy because there was once good art there, they aren’t painting, sculpting, fooling around on guitars, etc. They’re waiting tables or framing houses, often for the very people that caused their rent to go up when they moved to an area because it had a lot of good art and culture.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.patreedmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pat_reedy_music/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelongtimegoners/

Image Credits
Reto Strerchi