Linda Stout

I'm playing on Whole Wheat Radio, www.WholeWheatRadio.com, internet radio, a singer-songwriter station, webcast from Alaska. Listeners can rate the music, and there's a disclaimer that responses could be, well...odd. But all the rankings say "great" and "outstanding." I am not new to music, but this is my first release (though I produced something for someone else and also had a few demos I was too picky to really release). So it is a kick getting this good feedback. I told one of my pals about some recent good gigs, and the response was, "Well, why shouldn't you?...You're talented." Well, I remember a school music teacher, early on, not really noticing, and she was surprised later when I was doing high school musical theater, well, starring. But I wasn't surprised. Despite any crap I might have had, I knew, knew from little bitty childhood that I could and should sing. Still, the music biz can be tough. I understand that venue owners often have other things to do besides present music. So I'm thinking this with booking: I want to get the same easy flow I often get when writing or singing or playing. So while I'm eager to move forward, I'm thinking about going where I'm wanted. To use rather religious terms, I want to go where I'm "called" to go, share my music there. I think that can work, and when I think of that, can kind of imagine divine help, like that I know I get when I write. I take some credit for the edits and writing, too, but sometimes it's just listening. So however agnostic as I might get at time, I know I'm fed some tunes from celestial radio. I just have to listen. Back to booking, there's persistence, and there's struggle. I'm thinking about going where I'm wanted when booking, whether it's me or someone else doing the booking. It has been a little of both. I am starting to understand why some friends of mine will only do concert settings. But I'm open to restaurants and very excited that I got called by Rolo Gardner of the beautiful Coslo's in little Almond, NY, across the street from where I practically grew up, at my grandparents' house and aunt's and uncle's and cousins' house. I get to go play music across the street from where I spent so much time, where we threw rotten tomatoes at cars and where we got caught playing guitar (well, it was me playing guitar) and singing on the roof when the across-the-street neighbor, Florence Braack, called my aunt and said, "Do you know your children are on the roof?" I could go on. We were good kids, well...I think, but mischievous. We had lots of ideas, and got to make up our stange games vs. too much TV. We had some TV, too. I'm also playing on Radio Margaritaville. Go google that. More news to come...