[ajtaylor]

The last sentence was the kicker for me:

"You have to be both. Then you can surround yourself with smart people, secure in the knowledge you can control your own art and your own career--because if you don't, someone else definitely will."

I'm not much of an entrepreneur these days, but I know that the best way to succeed in life is to control your own destiny.

[pohl]

It's especially important if you're in a small artistic niche like instrumental rock that only connects with mainstream interest on very rare occasions, like Satch's Summer Song or Eric Johnson's Cliffs of Dover. Steve Morse handled this by becoming a commercial pilot, which gave him the latitude to focus on composing music that he himself found interesting, rather than trying to tap into what the market wanted.