Steel Guitarist retirements.....................

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

Familiar with all of the ups and downs one encounters while attempting to be a full-time steel guitarist side-man........

I'm curious how many 'popular' steel guitar icons
have been able to retire with many of the same benefits as his/her neighboring fork lift driver, ditch digger, truck driver and/or most any other hard working individual with a family.

I've heard that a number of our brethern have passed on surrounded by minimal family luxuries, some living in near poverty surroundings.

How's life as a steel guitar player....likely to end?

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

Ray, its like the wise guy said, "Don't give up your day job."
But then popular wisdom says, "Don't give up on your dream." Life is a crap-shoot.
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Jerry Hayes · From: Virginia Beach, Va.

Ray, I played full time until I was 45 years old and left southern California and moved to Virginia and a day job with a local city's Public Utilities Dept... I'm retired from that and doing quite well with my city retirement and Social Security. I still have some old friends in SoCal and other areas who stayed in music too long and are close to being destitute because of it.... I'm glad I got out of it before it was too late..........JH in Va.
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Brad Bechtel · From: San Francisco, CA

I haven't heard of any full time steel guitarists who made a comfortable living and retired on their earnings.
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Les Anderson · From: The Great White North

I know several musicians, (steel guitarists & other than steel guitarists) who spent their working lives chasing their musical dreams and have retired destitute and are now living on a day to day nickels and dimes existence. Most still brag about who they played with and all their good times on the road. Most are single with a one time family living somewhere else and not wanting anything to do with them. Maybe one percent of all roadies made their career a sustainable success for their retirement years; however, the vast majority realized their predicament much too late in life.

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

With your obvious personal knowledge of the subject,in TRUTH.......

How did the 'BIG NAME STARS"...., the band 'leaders', if you will, come out in retirement as compared to the many sidemen we've all come to know and love?

I'm referring to the likes of George Jones, Faron Young, Ray Price, Marty Robbins, Carl Smith et al.

Not meaning any kind of put down.....just a 'comparison'.....if you can help us out.

Les Anderson · From: The Great White North

Ray, I don’t fully understand your question, plus, I don’t consider your response a put down by any means. Third, yes, after 55 years of band work, I know a little about the consequences of musicians not looking at reality. I have too many friends who refused to even consider the concept of reality and are now professional beggars, living in flop houses. If they had a wife and children, they suffered terribly as well.

The big name stars such as the one’s you mentioned are riding on their well known names. The stars got $1000.00 - $1500.00 per show five musicians shared $600.00 - $700.00 per show (as per a sample). Few if anyone knew or knows the names of the musicians who backed up the big star’s glory days. The stars also get royalties for the long past hit songs they had. The backup musicians don’t get anything but their name on an old record label.

John Limbach · From: Billings, Montana, USA

Brian Hunter · From: Indianapolis

Unfortunately not an urban legend. The great Faron Young did indeed kill himself with a gunshot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faron_Young
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

You make your money in publishing in the music biz. If you haven't written any successful songs, there's a good chance you won't be retiring on your playing income.
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Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

In this day and age it's difficult for most people to retire. Greedy employers are taking away as many pension plans as they can, and workers are reliant on their survival. Too many companies go under nowadays; the employees are paid their pension rights, but end up having to spend their pensions while they are unemployed. Social security was intended to end all that but it hasn't kept up with the times. The days of working for a big company for 40 years and retiring with a full pension are disappearing. And it's no good building up a nest-egg by yourself: it can disappear overnight with a stock market depression. Mad

I'm afraid the golden age of retirement is over. All the working class can look forward to is declining standards with no hope in sight. You might as well scrape by as a musician and keep playing until you can play no more, then toss in the towel. Crying or Very sad

Billy Tonnesen · From: R.I.P., Buena Park, California

When my good friend Noel Boggs was playing on the big Spade Cooley Horn Band. he started selling Vitamins to try to make ends meet. This was a wakeup
call for me not to make Music my primary career. After my stint in the Army I went back to school on the G.I. Bill, worked 50 years in the Administrative end of the Trucking Industry and now have a very comfortable retirement. Played local casuals on the week ends.
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Stephen Abruzzo · From: Philly, PA

Well......in terms of Social Security anyway....if you don't make much in wages or self-employment over your working life, then you don't get much when you retire.

It is what it is. So, a sideman making peanuts over 40 years playing music will be SOL when he retires. If you don't pay the taxes, you don't get the benefits.

Len Amaral · From: Rehoboth,MA 02769

I heard someone say:

"Being a musician is the best part time job and the worst full time job"

For the most part, there is a lot of meaning in that statement.

Lenny

Benjamin Kelley · From: Iowa, USA

Being a musician full time is the only way to achieve TRUE excellence. It is a vocation and if it is meant for you, then you will be able to think of nothing else. You may have other jobs, you may fight the burning desire, but at the end of the day you desire nothing else more. I expect to die poor and this is okay with me. I believe in natural ability, however it requires hours of dedicated practice each day to develop that as far as it can go. You have to be frugal in todays era to survive anyway and as Alan mentioned todays blue collar may yet be the worst off at retirement, most employers in my area hire long term "temps" offering low pay and NO benefits and this loophole is perfectly legal. I've been at the short end of that stick and let me tell you at least this way I'm enjoying poverty. Cool

Cheers,
Benjamin
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Mike Neer · From: NJ

When I was younger, I was a full-time musician (5-6 gigs/week + teaching) and had a full-time job. It was brutal, but at least it enabled me to build a little bit of a nest egg and start a family.

Music is in my head all of the time, regardless of what else I'm doing. But I don't gig much at all anymore because I'm working a great job and it's just not worth feeling like crap unless the money is right, and it rarely ever is. If the money is right, it usually means I'm not playing steel.

It's tough out there for all musicians, but for steel players especially.
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Benjamin Kelley · From: Iowa, USA

I don't disagree with that, Mike. I also think geography can play a part in what is feasible. Here in southeast Iowa the cost of living is lower than anywhere else in the country and the pay is the same, so what most folks would consider not worth their effort is actually pretty decent by the standard in this neck of the woods.

And no, if I only played steel and did not travel, I would not have enough work.

Cheers,
Benjamin
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If I die trying I will steel the world one honky tonk at a time.

Len Amaral · From: Rehoboth,MA 02769

I didn't mean to disparage any musician for being a full time player. I played many gigs a week in my earlier life but always had a day gig burning the candle at both ends. I often wonder how I did it but my dad always said "There's no blood like young blood" Now I know what he meant.....*S*

Lenny

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

I had a 15 year run as a Union studio musician, playing on film scores. Not every week, but enough to make a decent living, by my standards, and at the same time I worked as a metal fabricator, in the film business. It was the crazy hours and I ended up with a nifty drug addiction. Laura confronted me with a, "it goes or I go", and that was the end of that life style.

Looking back, when you're a below-the-liner, in the film business, there's no shortage of abuse, but if the pay was good, I could tolerate it...up until I decided, I couldn't.

Retirement was never going to happen in my life, anyway, but it would have been nice to have had a choice.

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Fortunately, due to trying to stay out of Viet Nam, I got a few physics and engineering degrees. I lived, went to school and worked in aerospace in LA, so I gigged a lot on steel, banjo, & keyboards while I was there. I took a leave of absence from Hughes Aircraft (I had an understanding boss who played swing style piano) to play in Las Vegas for a while in 1975. Then, I dropped out and moved to Eugene, OR, where I played full time from 1980-85 in a band with my wife on fiddle and rhythm guitar, her sister on bass, a lead singer and guitarist and a great drummer. Then the bottom fell ot of the plywood industry, so I dropped in and went to work for Boeing in Seattle, playing as much as I could. I retired 3 years ago, and I can afford to play again - I'm gigging regularly, but - thank God for my retirement and Social Security.

James Hartman · From: Pennsylvania, USA

Personal anecdotes aside, fulltime Steel player is like any other mode of self-employment. Income is likely to be sporadic and variable, future prospects what you make of them - become complacent, you're in trouble. Like it or not, you're a business, and with all that entails.

Being able to "retire" would require serious planning from early on, monitoring cash flow, setting aside adequate savings in an appropriate investment vehicle, etc.

Know many musicians who've conducted their professional lives in this way? Not easy in the peculiar circumstance of the performing musician. And, the sort of personality that's comfortable with the insecurity of a musician's lifestyle is probably least likely to think in terms of distant eventualities.

Tim Harr · From: Dunlap, Illinois

I retired from the US Army four years ago after 22 yrs of active duty service. Most of which, was spent playing guitar, pedal steel, and dobro full time in the Army Band.

That is a great way to play full time, travel, make a very solid income ($80K at last grade), have 100% medical care paid for, 100% of your college education paid for, and more.

You have to pass the audition and read music fluently - all styles. Had a great time and worked with KILLER players. One of my good friends (Tim McDonald) a piano player in the Army Band went on to play with major country stars (Vince Gill was one of them). Today he tours with Olivia Newton John.

Anyway, I'm retired, working a civilian desk job & living it up. I still do some gigging and as much bass fishing as I can.
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Tom Gray · From: Decatur, GA

I agree with Mike about songwriting and music publishing. That's the key to surviving as a musician and I would imagine especially as a retired musician.
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Dan Simard · From: Quebec, Canada

The other question that I have is how many of us are full-time steel players (or musician)?

I'm thinking about steel guitar full-time but I'm not paid for it! To this date, my revenue as a steel player in 6 months (since I really began playing) is 5$, exchangeable for a beer... it even didn't cover the whole beer...

From all the musicians I know, I guess that 5% of them is making a modest living out of it, 10% is making extra money of it (that's where I am) and the rest is doing none and stopped playing music a long time ago.

So, is it even really possible to live as a full-time steel player?
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Don McClellan · From: California/Thailand

I remember hearing that Curly Chalker died with no money. I hope I'm wrong but It makes me wonder how Buddy is doing financially and how Hal Rugg, Jerry Byrd and others got along in the end. if these guys struggled where does that leave most of the rest of us?

[political commentary removed by moderator]

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