On a recent Friday night, Keith and I were blessed to see multi Grammy and Dove Award winner Carman in concert at a local church here in Baltimore. WOW. We went to enjoy a longtime favorite singer of ours and to hopefully get a selfie with him. What we got out of the experience was so much more than we could’ve imagined.
As an emerging Christian record label, it was like sitting at the feet of the master for a couple of hours. We learned so much! The takeaways extend far beyond the “100% SAVED” t-shirt that he threw into the audience and I caught.
So, in the next few blog posts, I’m going to share “Lessons We Learned From Carman.” Hopefully, these tips of the trade will help up-and-coming recording artists and related music professionals, not just the technical details of pulling off a tour but how to minister effectively from the stage.
First of all, this is a recording artist who hasn’t recorded in 13 years and hasn’t toured since his last recording! The generations have changed, the music has changed, the music industry has changed and the world has definitely changed. Goodness, we didn’t even have social media in 2003!
How do you make an artist relevant? Carman said himself that he wondered if people still wanted to hear his music. (Of course we do! You’re CARMAN!) For him, it was almost like starting from scratch, in that he had to first create music, then a musical tour, that brought him into 2016. But his decades of music industry savvy were well on display.
Lesson #1: Do good work! Some things don’t change. You can’t put a price on quality, certainly not on decades of experience and definitely not on Grammys or Doves. Carman got on stage by himself – no background singers, no musicians or dancers. Just him, in an understated but obviously tailored Italian black suit (no tie), and a microphone stand.
At this show, we got Carman and only Carman, and that was all we needed. The quality of his body of work, his showmanship and his ministry were at such a high level that anything else would have been an irritating distraction. But if you produce good work, it can stand on its own. The Bible says, “They will know me by my works.” That is also true for believers. They will know us, too, by our works.
Then, offer people a good time at a good price. General admission was 10 bucks. Yes, we got to see a Grammy winning singer on tour for ten dollars!
As an emerging Christian record label, it was like sitting at the feet of the master for a couple of hours. We learned so much! The takeaways extend far beyond the “100% SAVED” t-shirt that he threw into the audience and I caught.
So, in the next few blog posts, I’m going to share “Lessons We Learned From Carman.” Hopefully, these tips of the trade will help up-and-coming recording artists and related music professionals, not just the technical details of pulling off a tour but how to minister effectively from the stage.
First of all, this is a recording artist who hasn’t recorded in 13 years and hasn’t toured since his last recording! The generations have changed, the music has changed, the music industry has changed and the world has definitely changed. Goodness, we didn’t even have social media in 2003!
How do you make an artist relevant? Carman said himself that he wondered if people still wanted to hear his music. (Of course we do! You’re CARMAN!) For him, it was almost like starting from scratch, in that he had to first create music, then a musical tour, that brought him into 2016. But his decades of music industry savvy were well on display.
Lesson #1: Do good work! Some things don’t change. You can’t put a price on quality, certainly not on decades of experience and definitely not on Grammys or Doves. Carman got on stage by himself – no background singers, no musicians or dancers. Just him, in an understated but obviously tailored Italian black suit (no tie), and a microphone stand.
At this show, we got Carman and only Carman, and that was all we needed. The quality of his body of work, his showmanship and his ministry were at such a high level that anything else would have been an irritating distraction. But if you produce good work, it can stand on its own. The Bible says, “They will know me by my works.” That is also true for believers. They will know us, too, by our works.
Then, offer people a good time at a good price. General admission was 10 bucks. Yes, we got to see a Grammy winning singer on tour for ten dollars!