It’s so hard for me to believe that I will have been publishing OffBeat for almost 25 years. Damn! That’s a quarter of a century, a lot longer than many of our readers are old.

In my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d still be doing this, but as it turns out, OffBeat was exactly the right career path for me as someone who loved the arts and music (at one time, I planned to play classical guitar for a living, and my first major in college was fine art). I’ve always had a bent towards service, too. At one time—believe it or not, I wanted to be a nun. I also grew up in the Sixties, when community service was a big part of the lives of a lot of young people.

Thus, OffBeat is a great source of fulfillment to someone like yours truly. We get to support the artistic community in New Orleans and the state, and we’ve been instrumental in helping to change the attitude of locals towards music and culture. That’s made all the hard work that’s been put into this business worthwhile.

Unfortunately, some things haven’t changed at all. A talented young musician called me yesterday asking for advice. This guy is a great performer, disciplined, and he’s got chops and a vision. But while he’s making good music, he still needs to make a living, so he needs to transfer his talent into a way to pay the rent and support his children.

He called me to ask me about where he could find a good publicist, a booking agency and a manager. He’s been doing all of the business side of his music himself, and he realizes that to go to another level, he needs help.

What I typically do in a situation like this is to refer people to music businesses that I know are trustworthy and will work to help a young artists, which is what happened yesterday. But in doing that, it made me realize once again how lacking we are in a local music business infrastructure that’s crucial to creating a musical career for talented local artists.

A career as a successful musician (if you define success as recognition and concomitant pay scale) can’t be achieved without some serious contacts outside of Louisiana. It’s the nature of the business today, but it kills me to have to send people outside New Orleans to get the business help that they need.

This all goes back to educating young people in the business side of music, and giving them the opportunity and incentives to learn the tricks of the trade and stay here. Loyola Music Business Studies Program is a start. So is Delgado’s program, but we need more statewide, and we need programs in public universities. How do we create an educational system that can combine the talent and the business aspects to create a viable place to musicians to make music and to also make a living?