We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Ashker Kraft a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Robert, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Whenever I am making music or working on a film set, I believe something meaningful is always happening. Especially live music performance, lately.
About a year ago, while I was recovering from cancer surgery, I spent a lot of time on my back, alone, staring at the ceiling, and I started thinking about my life, and what, if anything, I had contributed to the world that was of any value. I kept coming back to the magic of live music performance and the way it brings people together, creates communities, crosses cultural and political boundaries, and just makes people feel good.
I thought about all the nights down through the years when I was privileged to share my music with people who may have mostly been strangers, but who, in those moments, were a family, a tribe, all vibrating at the same frequency. It is a kind of miracle, some nights.
These thoughts led me to the creation of my nonprofit – Bastrop Live Music Foundation. We focus on bringing live music performance to local venues out here in Bastrop County, raising funds to sponsor shows by national, regional and local artists – some of whom rarely perform in these small rural towns, because the bars and restaurants just don’t have the budget to invest in a consistent, vibrant live music scene.
Our organization takes the financial burden off of local businesses, and brings the gift of live music performance to our community, all while assuring that musicians, local and otherwise, are paid a living wage.
So, this project, Bastrop Live Music Foundation, is probably the most meaningful endeavor I have pursued.
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 grew up in a family of musicians, and music was pretty much just a part of daily life. Everywhere I went – church, school, social gatherings – there was probably someone strumming a guitar, or people gathered around a piano. So the idea of making music and writing songs was not alien to my way of thinking, growing up. Trying to do it for a living was kind of a crazy idea, though. that was not thought of as viable or respectable by the adults in my world.
A lot of my friends were musicians, and years of playing together in bands, meeting other musicians – professional musicians, too – kind of reshaped our thinking about career choices. Many of the adults around us believed that work was supposed to be unpleasant drudgery, and things like music and art existed to relieve that drudgery. People in my age group started asking why that had to be, and why couldn’t the “relief’ part also be the “work” part, and maybe we just leave the drudgery out of it?
So I started playing in bars and restaurants around Dallas when i was about 15, playing solo acoustic shows that were a mixture of originals and cover tunes. I was playing in a band at that time, and we would put on concerts at local High School auditoriums. I think it was that sense of community and camaraderie associated with making music that was appealing to me. Looking back, I never had stronger friendships or formed more meaningful bonds than the ones that were forged in the process of bringing something beautiful into the world. I still seek that out today.
Acting, on the other hand, was very much a late bloomer situation. Some musician friends encouraged me to do some voice work for radio and TV commercials, and I started doing that to pay the bills when I was in my 30s. That led to some on-camera work – commercials, short films, some small parts in TV shows and feature films. It wasn’t until the last ten years or so of film work that I started to feel about acting the way I had always felt about music; that there was something intrinsically valuable about the creative process of acting, bringing characters from the page to the screen and that it was a way of offering comfort to people, creating community, and helping people to feel “seen”.
The biggest comfort I got from music and movies, when I was a kid, was that they both gave me a sense that somewhere out there, there were people like me. I feel lucky to be able to pass that on in some small way through the same two mediums.
Bastrop Live Music Foundation is an extension of this idea of the importance of community. One of the things we do is connect musicians with each other. Out here in the wilds of rural Texas, is easy for creative people to feel isolated and lonely, and finding other folks with similar interests, who celebrate and thrive on creative pursuits, can be a live-saving thing. Bringing people together is a big part of what we do, for musicians and music fans alike.
I have a new record coming out this Spring, entitled 730 kHz, which was the frequency of my favorite radio station out of Dallas, growing up – Soul 73! 730 on the AM dial – which really shaped my musical landscape, and those songs still influence my creative processes to this day. I worked really hard on this record to recreate the feeling of driving around Dallas, TX in 1979, listening to the radio with your friends, and feeling like there was a whole world out there, waiting for you to arrive.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
In this age of streaming music services, and subscription services for films and TV shows, it is almost impossible for artists to make a dime from their work. Aside from downloading songs and going to theaters to watch movies, it is important to seek out ways to support artists that have touched your life in some way. Many musicians still sell CDs at shows. Buy an CD, even though you don’t have a CD player anymore. CDs are a tangible piece of a musicians legacy and mark on the world, and they often contain beautiful artwork and cool information about the artist. Buying CDs can help an artist continue on the creative path.
Same goes for merchandise, or “merch”, that artists sell at shows. You may never wear that tee-shirt, or snuggle your beer into that koozie, but you will have a cool souvenir of the live music experience, and a tangible connection to an artist whose work has touched you. Many musicians also sell their own art work at shows – paintings, pottery, poetry. Buy some!
The other thing people can do is be curious about a musician or actor they admire. Do some research and learn about other things they may be involved in, and spend some money exploring other films, music projects, collaborations, favorite causes, etc. Follow your favorite creators on social media, and just generally support whatever they are doing (without getting creepy about it, of course!)
A note about social media: more and more, music and film industry entities who make decisions about the careers of artists base much of their decision-making on the number of social media followers an artist can attract. A lot of decisions – from who gets cast in a film to who plays at the local club on Saturday night – come down to how many Instagram followers they have. It sounds crazy, but it is the way things are done, these days. So, follow, favorite, subscribe, like and INTERACT with artists on social media. It is a huge part of the game, and an easy way to give meaningful support to the folks whose work you enjoy.
Another thing you can do is seek out nonprofit organizations that offer services to musicians and artists. The life of a creative person can be very difficult. It involves a lot of sacrifice and loneliness, self-doubt and financial hardship. There are some great organizations out there that specifically address the challenges of creative life, and exist to make sure that none of our creative souls fall through the cracks. Organizations like HAAM, SIMS, MusicCares, and Sweet Relief address a variety of needs in the creative community from healthcare and mental health assistance, to affordable housing and financial assistance. Give to these organizations, if you can. They truly are the backbone of our creative communities.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The way I grew up made me very independent. I have always prided myself on my ability to get along on my own. In spite of my love of community and people in general, I tend to be solitary, and hate the idea of being a burden to anyone. The lessons of my childhood were that asking for help was a weakness, and being vulnerable was a sure-fire way of getting pounced on and chewed up.
Unlearning this has been difficult. It is a hard thing to let go of. It is clearly not a recipe for success in any field of endeavor.
In fact, when I look back at my life, the times when I was most exercising my independence and my rugged individualistic tendencies were also the times when I was having the least success in my personal and professional life. The times when I reached out for help, or extended a hand to seek out friendship, love, and support, are the times when my happiness and career opportunities soared!
Despite this irrefutable evidence of the inefficacy of my tough-guy, lone-wolf approach to life, I still struggle to overcome these bad habits, It takes a huge effort and a lot of pride-swallowing to ask a friend to help me move furniture or borrow a few bucks, let alone give me a ride to the hospital, or comfort me in a time of emotional crisis. But I am getting better at it.
Bottom line, good things are better when they are shared, and hard times are easier with a friend by your side. Hopefully, I can keep trending toward this basic, eternal Truth.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.robertakraftmusic.com, www.voicekraft.com, www.bastorplivemusicfoundation.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robert_a_kraft_music/ https://www.instagram.com/bastrop_live_music_foundation/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertkrafttrio https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057255199093
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertashkerkraft
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw0Lbdxj1qxMN1pIv27qfvA
Image Credits
I own the rights to all photos