TL;DR: You’ve gotta believe in yourself to make things happen.
Bohlinger asks: Is life a cosmic vending machine, or can we manifest our musical goals?
The law of attraction, or manifesting, has been in vogue for a while. I first heard about this semi-spiritual belief that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on back in 2006 with The Secret, Rhonda Byrne’s popular self-help book (and film) that’s sold over 35 million copies worldwide and been translated into 50 languages.
Essentially, positive thoughts and actions reap positive rewards, negative thoughts and actions reap negative outcomes—your thoughts determine your reality. To get there, follow these basic rules:
Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
Don’t get attached to the end result.
Stop complaining.
Find ways to elevate your mood daily.
We live in the age of string theory, where spirituality and science meet, so anything is possible. But even if you take out the science and spirituality, I know there is something to this hippie mumbo jumbo. Here’s how it works on a practical level for musicians:
You’re performing a song that has a difficult bridge. You know that the bridge is coming up, and the voice in your head says, “You’re going to mess this up, and you will feel deep, painful shame.” Sure enough, a few bars later, you mess up the bridge.
Here’s how it goes the other way: You have a gig coming up where you are playing that song with the bridge that you always boff, but this time you say to yourself, “Damnit, I am going to finally take the time to learn that stupid bridge and get it right.” So, you spend 10 minutes or 10 hours playing it until you have it right. You play it so many times that when you go to bed that night, the bridge is playing in your head on a constant loop. When you close your eyes, you can visualize your fingers working out the notes. You picture yourself playing it slowly, quickly, with a swing, really straight, then drift off to sleep with the song still looping under your dreams. At the gig, when that bridge comes up, you feel a bit of anxiety creeping in and say, “I got this.” And you are right. That’s the power of manifesting.
“Once a person makes a decision to walk away from the card table, they are not going to win the big pot.”
You can also experience this socially. If you stay positive, look for the good in people and situations, the people around you will tend to move in that direction as well. As an added benefit, staying positive tends to repel chronically bummed-out pessimists, who do not want to hang with people on the up. Misery loves miserable company, not optimistic company. All those Wednesday Addams-types tend to avoid what they consider naive, stupid happy people.
Same goes with a career in music. Interstates 440 and 65 are like conveyor belts, delivering an endless supply of young and old aspiring artists to Nashville to make their mark. In my 30-plus years working here, I’ve seen the wildly talented and the not-so-talented succeed and fail. The only thing the successes have in common is that they do not quit. That does not mean that the never-quitters are going to succeed. But once a person makes a decision to walk away from the card table, they are not going to win the big pot.
Here’s an example: Joe Bonamassa just released a 20th anniversary version of his game-changer album, Blues Deluxe. Bonamassa said, “If you had told me 20 years ago my career would last long enough to see the 20th anniversary of this little record called Blues Deluxe, I’m sure I would have laughed…. Blues Deluxe was my last shot after being dropped by two major record labels and my booking agent.” I have no idea if they had a law-of-attraction mindset, but Bonamassa and his manager, Roy Weisman, went all-in on their own project and turned their ideas into a host of Billboard-charting albums, never-ending tours of sold-out shows, the philanthropic Keeping the Blues Alive foundation, and an incredible collection of guitars and amps.
Maybe it’s manifesting, or maybe it’s just that if you believe in yourself and keep working, you will improve and find opportunities. The harder you work, the luckier you get.
As a kid, I read Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground and it changed my life. The bitter protagonist wastes his life living underground, feeding his anger and self-loathing with constant complaints. This is highly paraphrased, but he said something like:
“Only fools succeed, because an intelligent person knows that intelligence and hard work doesn’t matter, you will fail. So only fools succeed because they are too stupid to know they will fail.”
I signed up for this fool’s errand and never regretted it.
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After Billy Joe Shaver died, I went down the rabbit hole and found a man who lived life to the fullest.
Billy Joe Shaver left the arena in October of 2020. Although I'm a longtime fan, his death didn't make me sad. For one thing, in spite of a less-than-health-conscious lifestyle, Shaver lived almost five years past the U.S. national average. He also managed to pack two lifetimes worth of experiences into his 81 years on this planet.
Career-wise, Shaver racked up some incredible accomplishments. He earned hall-of-fame songwriter status with covers by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, the Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings, to name a few. Shaver also had a successful career as a singer, raconteur, and actor. A few years back, Shaver had a heart attack onstage while performing, but still finished the show. He'd planned on gigging the next night until the doc nixed it. If it wasn't for COVID-19 sidelining his work for 2020, Shaver would've been booked right up to the end.
Shaver's personal life was just as remarkable as his career. He was jailed in Mexico at 15, dropped acid with the Dead, and was married six times (three of those marriages to the same woman). Shaver struggled with his demons, which led him to do things like drive his car through the plate-glass window of a car dealership while intoxicated. He also lived up to his outlaw cred by actually shooting a guy (“right between the mother and the f**ker") outside a bar near his home in Waco, Texas.
I went down the rabbit hole after he died. I read several of his obituaries, listened to an NPR Fresh Air interview, and then re-watched the Billy Joe Shaver episode of Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus (Season 1, episode 5). What struck me most about his life was the winding road that led Shaver to his career in music.
On his 17th birthday, Shaver joined the Navy. Once discharged, he worked a long line of dead-end jobs, from roofer to rodeo clown. By the time Billy Joe was 28, he'd put aside his love of music and was working in a local lumber mill. One day at work, Shaver's right hand got caught in a machine, cutting off two of his fingers and leaving him less than Django had to work with. About the accident, Shaver told NPR: “I'd been writing all that time. Since I was a little kid, I'd been singing and stuff. And I just never had got serious with the guitar yet. And so when this happened, right at the very moment it happened, it just hit me right in the heart that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. I guess if I hadn't had these things cut off, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now."
Armed with a few self-penned songs, one good hand, and a vague plan of doing something in music, Shaver set out on his new life. Since he had no car nor money for bus fair, Shaver decided to hitchhike to L.A. According to Saving Country Music, “Billy Joe stood on the side of Interstate 10 in Texas, waiting for someone westward bound to pick him up. And he waited, and waited, and nobody stopped. Eventually Shaver got so frustrated, he switched over to the other side of the highway heading east. The first car that passed him stopped, picked him up, and took Shaver all the way to Memphis, Tennessee. He then made his way to Nashville, where he soon had a job writing songs for $50 a week. The rest is history."
Shaver's life story feels like a classic heroic odyssey. The hero knows he has a destiny greater than the life he's living. He doesn't know where to go or how to do it, but he knows in his gut that he is supposed to go someplace and do something. What appears to be obstacles are in fact the Fates, God, the universe, or dumb luck guiding his steps to get him where he's supposed to be. Who would've imagined that losing your fingers would make you think, “time to get serious about guitar?" Who could've guessed that a trip to L.A. from Texas lands you in Nashville? But had he not cut off his fingers he might have been just comfortable enough to stay in the wrong place. If he had money for a bus, he would've gone to the wrong city.
My biggest takeaways from my Shaver binge are:
1. Don't get too attached to your plans.
2. Passion leads to our purpose.
3. The only thing keeping you from your destiny is yourself.
This year has most of us thinking a bit more about life, death, and meaning. I'm not saying Shaver found the meaning to life, or even if there is one, but it's beautiful to see a life fully lived. That dude rode every ride at the carnival, then left when it closed.
Guitar Man chronicles the three-decade career of the best-selling bluesman and arrives on Video-On-Demand and for Digital platforms on December 8, 2020.
Hollywood, CA (November 17, 2020) -- Discover the extraordinary story of legendary bluesman Joe Bonamassa in the inspirational documentary GUITAR MAN, arriving on Video-On-Demand and for Digital purchase December 8, 2020 from Paramount Home Entertainment.
From average Joe by day to guitar hero at night, GUITAR MAN tells the incredible rise of blues-rocker Joe Bonamassa, whose hard work and determination have made him one of today’s top-selling blues artists. With more #1 Blues albums than anyone else in history, Bonamassa pulls back the curtain on his incredible career, allowing us to see his remarkable musical achievements and pioneering style. Featuring behind the scenes interviews and live concert footage showcasing some of the biggest names in music, kick back and enjoy the exhilarating soundtrack of his phenomenal life.
GUITAR MAN showcases Bonamassa’s astounding talent from his childhood as a "wunderkind" discovered and mentored by Blues legend B.B. King. At the age of only 43, Bonamassa has an illustrious career spanning over three decades. Through highs and lows, Joe persevered, taking his musical journey into his own hands to overcome challenges and reach his goals. In 2009, Bonamassa fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall and was joined on stage by Eric Clapton, marking a pivotal moment that elevated his music to the next level.
Filled with an abundance of music, live concert footage, and interviews with music industry legends, GUITAR MAN chronicles a musician growing in his craft, traveling the globe, collaborating with top artists from across the world of music, and ascending to the heights of inevitable success.
Watch the Guitar Man trailer:
For more information:
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