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 The 700 Club
Don explains how he records music with the
help of Chris Sligh. |
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American Idol
Behind the scenes of America's top-rated
show. |
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page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6
Hi, welcome to my website! Here's a little
bit about me and my journey.
A few years out of college (I graduated from
an ultra- conservative Christian university
with a church music degree, and was nearly
kicked out for playing contemporary Christian
music, but that's another story) I moved
from my home town of Greenville, SC to Nashville,
TN to pursue a career in music.
Even though I managed to have songs recorded
by Integrity Music and Word Music (sitting
in the studio and hearing Grammy-nominated arranger Don Hart's orchestration of my song played by a top
session orchestra was a highlight of my life)
I soon discovered the Christian music biz
was little different than any other biz.
Getting ahead is as political as any other
profession and doesn't rest on talent alone.
The Christian royalties
aren't all that hot,
either. When I arrived
in town, the big news
was that the writer of
the Dove award-winning
song of the year was living
in a dump, drove
a lemon and couldn't support
his family.
He gave up in frustration
and had just moved
Midwest to take a church
music director job.
Welcome to Nashvega$!
I made friends who were on the business side
of Christian music and learned about marketing.
Tired of waiting by the mailbox for royalty
checks and digging in my seat cushions for
quarters to buy a Checker's hamburger for
dinner, I decided if I wanted to make it
in music I'd have to do something about it.
My mantra has always been that I don't care
about being rich or famous, I simply want
to make a living doing what I love: music.
After about a year of trial,
error and marketing
research I came up with
an instrumental CD
[called a "concept
CD" in industry
terms], talked the duplicator
into making
me 4,000 copies on credit,
sold out to Christian
bookstores and paid off
my bill. Success,
rinse and repeat. I eventually
sold 20,000
units from my spare bedroom
and moved back
to Greenville so my parents
(now referred
to as my shipping department)
could help
me pack and ship product.
Fun, but too much work.
Not a few Christian
bookstores buy on 60 day
billing and forget
to pay little guys like
me. Packing, shipping
and chasing late payments
was starting to
get old.
Then God lead me to accept
a part time worship
leader job at a new church
plant in town,
and out of this experience
was born all kinds
of new music, ministry
and creative ideas.
Next: Worship Web |
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