Making a business out of music
“There’s
a song in everything,” says songwriter and performer John
Arthur Martinez of Fredericksburg. “There a song in a sunset, there’s a song in heartbreak, there’s a song in a wildflower after a rain.” The
15 albums of his original music have his initials on them: J A M. He is one dedicated and committed Texas musician. He competed with other musicians in a nationwide televised music contest. “The broadcast and re-broadcast all over the world made me able to make a living with music.”
He had a little slowdown when the pandemic started. “I went back to one of my other talents and started teaching tennis. I played college tennis at the University of Mary Hardin Baylor. My wife told me we had a mortgage and needed some money coming in. She told me HEB was paying $25 an hour for night stockers. I told her I’d teach tennis. I still have a client that pays me lots of money for tennis lessons.”
John Arthur’s song COMING HOME was played to wake up astronaut Jim Riley on NASA’S Atlantis Space Mission. “A fellow came up to me when I was playing at one of the wineries around here and he told me he would like to use that last song as part of his mission. He handed me a card that read Jim Riley, astronaut.”
I interviewed JAM in radio station KNAF in Fredericksburg. He had his guitar with him and I asked him if he would play a potion of that song. “Sure”, he said and played a little bit of the song. “After that televised music competition I was played all over the world. Now I’ve been played in space.”
John Arthur makes about 270 appearances a year, some are in small cafes, others in concert halls. When I visited with him he had just returned from performing in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Spain. “It was kind of crazy. I played the same music in Europe that I’d play at a club or restaurant over here. They don’t speak English but they like western music. Some places had American flags on stage.”
His hometown of Marble Falls is having a musical festival called FIESTA JAM on October 20th and 21st with emphasis on songwriting. Los Lonely Boys will be the headliner. He’ll conduct a seminar on how to more than just survive in the music business, something he knows a lot about. “One percent of one percent of all people who try to do this actually make a living with music. You can’t expect to have a major hit and live off royalties. I create opportunities like hosting a songwriting event in Burnet, Texas and I have sponsors to bring in special guests. It’s like selling. Everywhere I go I always include a meal for the musicians and myself. There are ways to make a living with music but you have to work at it. You have to use other talents besides being a musician because you have to be the booking agent, the recording studio engineer, the website guru, the marketing and advertising and social media specialist, you have to be the band leader and the tour manager who coordinates which air BNB we’re going to be in when we play in Barcelona. You have to make lots of phone calls.”