Artist Advocacy Foundation | Thank Yous
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Artist Advocacy Foundation / Thank Yous

Thank You Letters from Artists …

 

  1. From Dave Stamey RE: the Value of Archiving:

 

Dear Ron,

 

Just a quick note to say thanks for everything that you do.  Your hard work in being an artist’s advocate has benefitted me quite a bit over the years, not the least of it having to do with being included in such a stellar line-up of great pickers and storytellers that grace your concert series.  But your making available to me the videos from the concerts have been especially helpful.  Of course you know that as a working, travelling independent singer-songwriter, everything I do is on my own dime.  Especially when it comes to promotion.  I can’t afford to have an expensive video made to promote a song as do acts with a major label contract, and sometimes the budget for promotion in general can be eaten up by gasoline and auto repair costs.  Having access to the quality videos you have shot and archived of me performing to an appreciative audience has made it possible to market my work to new venues all over the country.  I am grateful for that, and hope you continue your good deeds for many more years to come… Dave

 

 

  1. From Jackie Bristow – RE: The Value of Promotional Assistance

 

Dear Carole and Ron,

 

I am very grateful to have the support of the Artist Advocacy Foundation!

Thank you so much for the $500 towards the release of my album “Shot of Gold”. Being an independent artist and full time working musician can be challenging. It’s a success to make enough money to pay rent let alone to make and release a new product.

This money will go towards paying a good publicist based out of Nashville who has the network and contacts to get my album some exposure… and reviews and stories and maybe even a little radio to create some awareness of myself and my album.

This is important because without any exposure or promotion no one will know about this album or me and I will not be able to get to the next level. I have been very committed to my career and worked hard as an indie artist in the USA for a decade. And a decade before that in Australia. It’s been a long journey. I have the experience and songs now I need to move up the chain but I sadly do not have the money to pay people to help me get there.

So I am super dupa grateful for your support and this money is very much appreciated and will go towards paying my publicist who I am hoping can help me gain a wider audience!
Thank you!!!!!! ❤️🙏🏻

 

  1. From Paul Miles – RE: Our help in replacing stolen Equipment

Artist Advocacy Foundation

RE: Donation

 

I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the donation of $400. This donation will assist me in a most critical situation of theft of my music equipment.

My profession on a full time basis since 1995 is a touring musician. I realize my mission is to spread the music of the Blues.

The morning when I looked in my car and found my guitars and amplifier missing, my heart sank. I said how could somebody violate me in this way. The people who stole from me did not know my schedule of shows and the people depending on me to share my gift of music.

When I posted on social media to let people know what happened and this wouldn’t stop me from playing music , I got  big surprises.  People reached out to me.  I would be assisted to continue my dream of spreading Peace& Blues throughout this world.

I’m in gratitude to all including “Artist Advocacy Foundation” to help a Bluesman who got knocked down but is now back up. I will inform the public of this special gift.

Thanks again from the bottom of my heart for your generosity. Reaching my 64th year, I’m ready to kick it up a notch. My life and work as an artist has been blessed by your assistance. Anything I can do for you I will.

Peace&Blues – Paul Miles

 

  1. From Michael On Fire – RE: Production Assistance

 

Dear Carole Ann and Ron,
This is to express my sincere thanks and deep gratitude to you both and to The Artist Advocacy
Foundation for the opportunity and reality to record my CD “The Solstice Session” at the studio
Erickson Sound Labs, and for procuring the services of the great musicians — Tompeet Fredrickson, Bill Flores, Jim Pugh, Jack Joshua and Bear Erickson. The presence and contributions of these professional musicians was so important and necessary to record this magnificent work as it took musicians who have the ability to improvise and create on the spot and in the moment; that doesn’t come free. In a very real sense you paid for a combined 200 years of professional, musical, performance and studio experience.

As I left the studio, I felt that the recordings were an evolutionary step forward, and that the music and the songs went to another level — a culmination of all of the talents involved. It felt so good to all of us, and we all feel that we accomplished what we set out to do. Thank you.

The Solstice Session was the direct result of the financial payment that The Artist Advocacy Foundation made possible for this project. In order for it to become viable in the marketplace will require many other elements to be put in place (publicity, advertising, radio, touring, etc), but all of that is secondary to doing the work and having the product to show for it. Thanks to The Artist Advocacy Foundation we were able to do the work, and we have the product.

My Humble and Sincere THANKS.

Michael On Fire

 

From: Bent Myggen / The Crooked Path

 

To the Artist Advocacy Foundation – on inspiration , connection, morale-boosting

Thank you for your recent donation of $1,000.00 for the continuation of our work. The Crooked Path
is a Music Sanctuary, created as a space for true music to occur, where the listener and player is
connected and audiences leave inspired and soulfully touched.
We offer musical performances free to the public, and relying on donations to help offset operating
costs. Many accomplished musicians grace us by coming to play for almost nothing, because they are
aware of the gift that music is.
Today the sound of music is everywhere, but the muse of music only exists when it is live. Live music
is where connection, healing and bonding occurs and many in our audience have expressed profound
gratitude, even professed to have rekindled their “faith” by attending concerts at the Crooked Path. Our
mission is not only to play, but to connect with everyone in attendance.
The Crooked Path is a sanctuary, a Church of Music offering no doctrine, only a place of peace where
the gift of music is given and received. We are open to the public each weekend throughout the
summer.
We are very grateful to The Artist Advocacy Foundation. Your donation was a wonderful surprise as
well as booster of morale going forward.
Thank you!

Rev. Bent Myggen,
Composer, producer, conductor and resident of the Crooked Path, Los Olivos, Ca.
The Crooked Path
PO Box 181
Los Olivos, CA 93441

 

From: PETER MULVEY – receiving and passing along advocacy
​Ron-
 
I loved that gig with Heather last month. Thanks for that.
 
I sat for a while with what to do with the $1000 check you wrote from the Artist Advocacy Foundation. Thought about it for a bit. Then it came to me.
 
For the past couple years, my main guitar has been a Martin 00-17 from 1939​, the year my father was born. I even brought it on the bicycle tours, which was truly dumb, as I travel those tours with the guitar strapped to the side of my bicycle with bungee cords.
 
Sure enough, during a twilight ride from last September’s bicycle tour, I hit some mud and skidded and fell over, bicycle and all, right onto the guitar. Through some miracle, it was unharmed. But even as I was losing balance, I thought to myself “Mulvey, what are you DOING? This is an irreplaceable heirloom from the golden age of guitar building!!!”
 
My hand was forced: I needed to buy a decent traveling guitar, not just for bicycle tours but for all my touring. A guitar that, if it were to be smashed to smithereens, they could just build another one.
 
So, I rang up C.F. Martin, and asked if I could become an endorser. They said yes, I went to their factory in Nazareth, P.A., and got a brand new 00L-17 guitar. It’s a whiskey sunset finish, and it plays and sounds great.
 
I’d like to send you some pictures of me with the guitar, and work with you to write up this story, so you can share it with your audience and add to the reputation of the AAF.
 
There’s a wrinkle to this story, which you might or might not want to add: I thought about it for a while, and figured that the guitar was the best thing to do, in the spirit of your gift. BUT, being an ex-catholic, being who I am, and considering that I’d recently had a Kickstarter campaign for my new record … I felt impelled to do something.
 
So I did a little artist advocacy of my own. My friend Pamela Means just launched a record, in a push to resume her career after a seven-year hiatus while she did some much-needed on her personal well-being. And she’d hired a publicist. And then her old Honda bit the dust. So she was going to have to cancel her publicity campaign.
 
I sent her a grand. No strings. Just a thing that I could do. Inspired by you, doing a thing that you could do.
 
Thank you, Ron Colone. I hope to make many people happy with this guitar.
 
Happy Tuesday, and thanks,
 
Peter Mulvey