FunJobs Blog

“How did you get that FUN JOB?” is a question I have asked numerous times.

Taylor Swift and I at BMI Awards

I have worked in the music business for more than twenty years with stints in film and television production, writing, and visual merchandising in-between, and so the question “How did you get that FUN JOB?” is one I know well.

I grew up in a small Eastern Oregon town where the only people I knew in the music business were my high school band and choir teachers and my piano and voice instructors.

Although music filled my life—my father played guitar and sang in barbershop quartets, he and my mother sang in church choir, one of my brother’s had a garage band, and I was instructed in piano, violin, saxophone, bass clarinet, and voice—it never occurred to me that if I didn’t pursue a career as a performer, I could still combine my love of music with a job and work in the business side of music.

Me with Chris Rock

If I had ever heard mention of job titles like song plugger, engineer, promotion director, A&R, and road manager they would have been like a foreign language to my ear and completely outside my perception of possibility.

Me with my Nashville series hoodie producers gave crew members for Christmas

Never did I dream I would one day become an agent, working on tours for Vince Gill, George Michael, Roy Orbison, Tina Turner, Randy Travis, and others, nor that I would one day manage an artist, run a publishing company whose writers wrote hits for Taylor Swift, One Direction, Celine Dion, Brooks & Dunn, Delta Goodrem, Joe Walsh, Pixie Lott, Martina McBride, Reba, George Strait,

…place songs in feature films and televisions programs For The Love Of The Game, House of Boys, W., The Other End of the Line, Billy: The Early Years, Crazy, Mulholland Drive, In Dreams, Love Letter, You’ve Got Mail, Ally McBeal, Beverly Hills 90210, Felicity, travel around the world representing the Roy Orbison estate song catalog and masters, write and produce documentaries and books, represent sound engineers working on Labor Day, Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers, Safe Haven, Stoker, The Paperboy, series Nashville, Missing, American Ride, and Granite Flats.

Producer David Huff, American Idol Lauren Alaina, Tanja Crouch at BMI Awards

I did not discover the business side of music until I was 26 years old and took a temporary job at Triad Artists, Inc. (now William Morris Endeavor) talent agency. Within a week, I was hired as assistant to agent and my career in music business was launched.

It took me a few more years to discover the depth of possibilities for talented people to express their creative skills in the music business. Today I am still discovering new avenues and am often impressed by those who saw a need and carved out their own careers, making something new, indispensable.

This blog (and my books) are meant as an inspiration and catalyst for those who want to pursue a career that will one day make someone ask: “How did you get that FUN JOB?”

Me, Jason Mraz, Barbara Orbison at party for Roy Orbison’s Hollywood Star