Passion

I ran into a friend today that I haven’t seen in years. His name is Kenny Marks. When I first met him in the mid-1980s, Kenny was an artist on the Word Records label. You can find chord information to a number of Kenny’s songs here.

But, this is a blog about voice-over; not Christian music. So, why mention running into Kenny? Because as we talked this afternoon, I was reminded afresh about one of my convictions: you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. Kenny isn’t a full-time musician signed to a record label these days. What he’s doing is good stuff, things that he enjoys and it stretches him in ways that his music didn’t. But, as we talked I could hear that he misses being a musician, a full-time musician. He even said so at one point, confirming my guess.

I had a similar conversation yesterday with another man. Years ago he worked “on the air” on radio. His career path has taken him away from that for a long time now, but it remains one of his abiding passions. He very much wishes he could still do a live radio show. For my part, I told him that from the time I first learned about production and voice-over work, I lost nearly all of my desire to be “on the air” live.

But, giving voice to someone’s story, either through the crafting of the words or even more through the telling of that story in a recording studio? This I love with a deep and abiding passion.