It’s safe to say Paul Babelay is great company, which is good, because my rental hybrid had to endure a gravel road at a very steep grade to find him. Paul told me when I arrived that I missed seeing a bear on his property by twenty minutes. I was glad I hadn’t arrived twenty minutes early.

Paul has done the traveling band scene and the stable life of a theater percussionist. He says every week is a different mix, playing different instruments, different genres of music, different groups and performances in and around Asheville, NC. It’s a testament to the creative community there that he has access to such variety.

Paul has spent a lot of time thinking about the changes in music resulting from the Internet. He sees real value in being able to watch great artists perform, and has personally benefited that way. But he also feels instant access to music is devaluing the craft of musicmaking in many people’s eyes. A mentor to songwriters and musicians, he also worries about the slippery slope of giving recordings away, which could easily lead to musicians being expected to keep giving other revenue streams away as well.

I think you’ll enjoy spending time with Paul in this video, and you’ll learn about the vibraphone (well, I learned about it anyway).

Also be sure to follow along my entire cross country road trip on our road trip blog!

Share this:

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 2:08 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under creators across america. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.