[Harp-L] success and hitting the numbers

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rainbow Jimmy writes:


"If Carlos Santana could land a string of mainstream hits on the pop  
radio,
then Jason can."


?  If Bill Clinton can be elected President, then I can.  It won't  
happen, but theoretically it's not impossible, as I am eligible for  
office as per the constitution (or will be soon enough).  There are  
thousands of musicians who never break through to mainstream success,  
and many others who get that success for a moment and then never  
again.  The odds of a musician becoming a major record selling  
success are about the same as for a high school athlete making the  
Major Leagues--basically nil.  So many things have to align  
themselves for it to happen, and it's almost impossible to predict.


"Jason has  the chops, he's got the work ethic."


Neither of which really mean anything for the kind of success you  
mention or which the list has been discussing.  There are dozens of  
harmonica players who have those two assets and can support  
themselves financially through music but will never break through to  
a major-level commercial success (and some who even after that  
success will never regain it).


" Carlos was
lucky to be one of the acts at Woodstock. That got him nation wide
exposure--it was a new sound but still rock. Jason too has a new  
sound, but
it's still accessible."


Santana was part of a musical scene in San Francisco which was  
producing major level acts one after the other.  This has happened  
several times in pop music (Memphis in the early 50's, the British  
Beat scene in the mid 60's, LA metal in the early 80's, Seattle in  
the early 90's, etc...).  These scenes develop the musical talents of  
those in them and in rare cases ends up merging with larger musical  
and societal trends (there have been plenty of local scenes which die  
out because they don't do the latter, such as Boston's scene of the  
early 90's, though my memory is hazy).  Santana was part of that and  
the mixture hit right and many bands had huge success.  Santana was  
lucky to be one of these, and as in most such scenes they had  
developed their own sound in order to stand out, the same way  
individual members of the other such times this happened all had  
distinct sounds from one another.

As far as I know, Jason isn't really involved in any such musical  
scene around a single location, with hundreds of local fans  
(preferably very young) and a big club scene.  That's not a knock on  
him, just that his situation is significantly different from that of  
Santana, the Grateful Dead or Sly Stone.  Moreover, all those acts  
were tapping into the biggest musical force on the pop scene at the  
time: blues-based rock and psychedelia.  Jason is tapping into a  
smaller trend, the jam-band style.  Hip-Hop is by far the dominant  
musical scene in the US, but it doesn't seem to have much of an  
influence on Ricci's work (unlike, say, Kid Rock, who makes rock  
songs with a hip-hop methodology), with post-punk a secondary force,  
again I see little of this in Ricci's playing (which is fine--he  
plays what he wants).

Indeed, I must say as good as he is, I really don't find that much  
new in Ricci's music.  I like it well enough, but for the most part  
it is very similar to what people like what Albert Collins were doing  
in the 80's in terms of the grooves and beats.  Jason has brought a  
bit more of the looseness of the jam-band scene to it, but it doesn't  
strike me as revolutionary the way Collins himself was back then (or  
someone like Robert Cray, who mixed blues with 80's soul).  And  
there's nothing wrong with that--I love Cephas and Wiggins, but I  
wouldn't say that they are innovative or revolutionary, just damn  
good music.  I would wonder what Jason himself thinks of some of the  
exuberant praise which is sent his way, because he seems to have a  
decent knowledge of the blues' past and would think he could probably  
point out precedents for what he does better than most others (the  
way the British blues-rock guys of the 60's would quickly point out  
the precedence for what they were doing).


" He just needs the exposure. Playing with Matchbox 20
wouldn't hurt either."


Agreed, but Sugar Blue played with the Rolling Stones back when they  
were a hell of a lot bigger than Matchbox 20 ever was or will be, and  
it didn't launch him to massive success (Blue is another example of  
someone I see as very similar to what Ricci is doing musically, and  
again Blue was doing it almost thirty years ago).  Pop success is  
like winning the jackpot in slots.  The odds are so slim that you  
really don't have a better shot if you play for hours than you just  
put one coin in.  I would love for Jason to get major radio play and  
all, hell, I would love that for a lot of people, many of them on  
harp-l.  But the odds of it happening are so slim better to just do  
what you do and let the chips fall where they may--which actually  
seems to be the track which Ricci is tacking by touring, putting out  
records and slowly moving up the ladder in terms of exposure and the  
like.  If massive success happens, it happens--but I wouldn't bet on  
it any more than I'd lay my life savings down on a roulette roll in  
Vegas.




 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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