Friday, November 2nd, 2007
professional amateurs
“professionalism is way overrated. it is the spirit of the amateur that people in creative occupations- in almost any occupation- need to cultivate more than anything else. a couple of hundred years ago, “amateur” was an entirely positive, noble description of someone. the word comes from the latin amator, which means “lover.” an amateur undertaking was something you did out of love, for the pleasure of doing it- something you did out of passion (and if you think about it this whole country was a nation created by passionate amateurs).
-kurt andersen, in “ode o amateurism”
there is nothing little about little wing
this is tom our neighbor and little wing’s drummer. he also is a member of another band called the lunatics. he plays the hell out of rock and roll but his true love is the blues. he has toured all over the world for over 20 years playing with the likes of carey bell, louisiana red, champion jack dupree, lovie lee, katie webster, karen carroll, jeanne carroll, rudy rotta, steve “big man” clayton, and vince weber. what an impressive list! he also is president and ceo of his own very successful print marketing company.
what makes the entire band so special is that like tom, carry other titles. they are corporate professionals, business executives, not to mention, mothers and fathers who are passionate lovers of music and get together to make good, wild, make you shake your body music (jam session video).
often rotating guest musicians, they get down and dirty, feeding their souls doing what they love, what gives them joy, sharing it and taking us along for the ride. it is wonderful to see these guys enjoying their passion for music.
one our favorite things to do is going to see live bands so we were excited to go see these wild guys last weekend hot- date- style with an overnight babysitter thrown in for extra fun. we had a blast. the energy was unbelievable, we were all shaking our bodies and howling like wolves to the wee hours of the morning.
i have said before, we don’t get out much, and when we do, we talk about it for days like to kids just back from disneyland. so yeah, we are still talking about little wing and will forever. especially since they let me sing back-up when they played mustang sally!
*more here* local paper coverage