“Namedropping”. Why do it? It seems human nature to try and impress upon others someone you know, especially someone of status. In many cases it isn’t someone you know, just someone you ENCOUNTERED. Does it really improve your standing, your importance, that you were in line with Graham Nash at an airport? Is it bragging rights that you were on a festival line-up as a noontime performer on the little stage in the woods and Sheryl Crow headlined on the main stage at 9:00 PM? How much mileage comes from reporting that your second cousin’s girlfriend used to style Pam Tillis’ hair? It seems like nothing is truly gained by all this dropping of names, yet it goes on wildly. And, in my experience, the legitimate occurrences with famous people tends to have little-to-no impact on anything. For instance, when my music career takes me into the sphere of hitmaking recording artists and network TV shows, bonafide endeavors, no one wants to hear about it or read about it. Though the bio (biography) on my artist website describes my appearance on MTV, Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, opening for Willie Nelson, playing lead guitar in Freddy Fender’s touring band, singing onstage with Joan Baez, playing in bar bands with Warren Haynes, etc. it does not translate to folks attending my shows. And, those are REAL, unembellished experiences of a lifelong performer. Promoters of my concerts like to plug my concerts with all that wordage, but, it NEVER brings people out to an event! Most of the folks who DO attend never read any of that, and are not aware of it throughout the concert. Low tier “gigs”, such as places hiring me to play beneath loud talking hooligans, do not even attempt to exploit my track record. In fact, they seldom even put my name on a sign outside! Is it of ANY value, to name drop? I mean, it seems to create an unpleasant atmosphere more times than not. Once the talker unloads a comment about the co-writing occurrence with a renowned tunesmith, the occurrence that happened once and yielded no successful song, the listener(s) gets ready to change the subject. I remember coming home from a 10-week tour of Europe and UK, and reporting how I had a night of meeting Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Jeff Beck. Count them-that is three Rolling Stones plus Beck. Upon telling my rock and roll fan friends of the exciting night they all showed little interest. A few of them downplayed it because the three Stones were insignificant. Mick and Keith were not among them, and that disarmed my story. When I performed on The Tonight Show as part of Steve Earle’s band, briefly meeting Charlton Heston and hanging a bit with Leno himself, it was not even mentioned by family and friends afterward. It was as though that is “old hat”, something they take in all the time. There was no curiosity about how the show was put together, how unique it was to be in the universe of Heston and Leno. It was something that was best kept to myself. No one I knew was interested in hearing about it. So, why WOULD one wish to talk of such things? The ”paydirt” is not there, no perks come from it. If anything, you invite ill feeling by telling of it. I have stood in rooms, countless times, listening to clusters of folks trying to one-up each other with name drop after name drop. It is a grotesque sight to watch the competition taking place. And, if you find yourself throwing that stuff out there notice how oily you feel afterwards. The aim is high, but, the end result has cheapened you. We have all done it, most likely. But, it won’t write a song for you. It won’t get you that gig. You will not start to climb the music industry ladder faster. Your musical chops will not improve. If you are not really IN music it will NOT PLACE YOU THERE. The belief is that it is a nice little short cut to those things. Not so.