I’m always interested in how people maintain doing excellent work over a period of many years, regardless of the type of work they do. As Peter Drucker has said, “Workmanship counts.” Two examples from the world of music are Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe, who will be touring together in Europe this summer. In my rock writing days — a long time ago — I interviewed Lowe several times and wrote a lot about him and his earlier band, Brinsley Schwarz. Both Cooder and Lowe are admirable for regularly leaving their comfort zones as musicians and songwriters. Among other things, Cooder has written a novella to accompany his latest album, I Flathead, and has worked in many musical worlds, including rock, world music and soundtracks.
Part of the secret of Cooder’s success has been his strong sense of ongoing learning. Although I have only seen this in hard copy and not online, Cooder gave an intriguing interview to Charles Shaar Murray in the August 2008 issue of the excellent British magazine The Word. Murray asked if there was a thread through his highly varied career. Cooder started his extended response with this reply: “The truth is… the only thing I can tell you is that I was always trying to learn to do something I can’t.”
On a sadder note, the innovative singer-songwriter John Martyn (known to many as the writer of Eric Clapton’s “May You Never,”) whom I interviewed in Washington, D.C. when he was doing a gig at the legendary Cellar Door in the late ’70s, died on January 29th.