Christopher Cross – HuffPost 9.13.13

Mike Ragogna: Chris, I have to ask you, what is your advice for new artists?

Christopher Cross: Oh, you know, I think the same advice for the way I’m living my life right now. You make records and write songs and all this because it’s what we do. This new record I’m doing, I’m self-financing it, actually taking quite a bit of money out of my daily funds to make it, but I’m not skimping on the quality. It’s got real strings and great players. So one could ask, “Why are you doing this?” when Doctor Faith and the last few records haven’t sold really anything to speak of. It’s cause it’s what we do. I think when you look at artists like Tom Waits and Randy Newman and artists of this caliber, sort of the writer’s writers, they were not always heralded and rewarded with huge monetary success. Clearly they’re cult icons and they have a lot of fans, but they just continue doing good music. Same with Joni. Initially, everyone was all abuzz about Clouds and Blue but then her later work was where she really opened as a flower and showed her complete beauty and gift, and yet that music goes overlooked and undiscovered for the most part, like all the stuff she did with Jaco and all that. But she continued to do it. You just do what you do because you love to do it and if you are fortunate to have some success with it, that’s great. But the reason you do this should be because it’s a labor of love and you want to do it. I think you find some way to either make money or make money some other way and just do it. It’s a wonderful way to spend your life. My son is a jazz guitarist and we’re dealing with that right now. Does he want to just go get a job, does he want to go to music school and teach? I keep telling him, “You want to do what you enjoy.” You just don’t want to get up every day and go to a job that you don’t really like. At the end of your life, you’ll look back and it’s kind of a dark road.