Bob Gaudio – HuffPost 7.3.14

Mike Ragogna: You’re getting into this territory, so I need to ask you right away: What advice do you have for new artists?

Bob Gaudio: I did a seminar a while ago with Eddy Arnold and Mike Curb and I told a little story that I won’t go into in too much detail. But I’ll start off with the advice as most people have heard many times–follow your dreams. An example of that is when I was doing The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond, I did the movie and I did the album. I was on MGM doing the final mixing of the film and I walked out into the lobby and I run into someone who I hadn’t seen in twenty-five years. We started talking and he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Working with Neil Diamond,” “Oh yeah, right,” “What are you up to?” and he said, “I’m out here doing some little film but with some really talented people, great director, couple of great actors and I’m hoping… It’s been my first major role, but I’ve been trying to do this and I’m forty-two. I’m ready to get out of the business.” Guess what it was? It was Raging Bull and that was Joe Pesci. I hadn’t seen him in twenty years. There’s an example. At forty-two, forty-three years old, he stayed with it and bingo, it finally happened. That’s the advice. How long can you stand it? If you can stand it, stay with it.