(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat tones) - Thanks for exploring the Heartland with us.

I'm Fred Martino.

Poss Music Works is a nonprofit with a mission to foster music and culture in Illinois.

And the concerts they promote include free admission for children 15 and younger.

It is a great time to talk about the organization as they are hosting the Moccasin Creek Festival through Sunday, June 23rd.

It starts Thursday, June 20th, and then goes through the 23rd at the stage at Lake Sara in Effingham, Illinois.

We welcome Bill Poss of Poss Music Works, who is a musician himself.

Bill, thank you so much for being with us.

- Great to be here, Fred.

- It's good to have you here.

You've had a love of music your whole life pretty much.

This began for you at age six, right?

- I grew up going to concerts with my family, going to big festivals and that sort of thing.

And when I was six, my mom, like my brothers ahead of me, put me in piano lessons and I started to learn how to play music.

And so that was a wonderful start.

I was in the band in high school and in junior high and continued in college.

I was in musicals and swing dance and that sort of thing.

- And so that's really neat.

So you, I mean, a lot of young people take music lessons, a good number more in a band at school.

But sure, it sounds like your mom really encouraged this by also taking you to concerts growing up.

- And my dad also.

My dad was a banjo player and guitar player.

- Oh, so he was a musician.

So that helped.

- And all three of my brothers became professional musicians.

So yeah, so it's kind of a family tradition.

- In the family and it must be rewarding for you creating this nonprofit to be able to give that to other young people who might otherwise never have that experience since you have free admission for young people that are 15 and younger.

- Yeah, that was really important to me.

You know, when I was in my touring days, I would go to these festivals all over the country in Canada and that sort of thing.

I had a kid with me.

For his first five years of his life, he was on the road.

And so we would go to these festivals and then we would develop these relationships with other kids.

And they would be all they'd be loving the music but they'd all go run and play and they'd come back and enjoy the music.

But it was like a family of it was like a community that came together once a year at these festivals.

And that's why having the kids there makes it.

It just makes it a beautiful thing, you know?

- And it's so important because even for young people who never have an interest or never want to become a musician to give them that appreciation of music and arts and culture when they're young and make sure that money is not, you know, a barrier for them.

- Yeah, that's real important.

Like, as you said, our events are free to kids 15 and younger with a paying adult.

You can't just drop 'em off, you know?

- Right, right, right, right, right, right.

- But it's, yeah, so yeah, so they can see what's possible.

You know, most people these days experience music through an electronic media of some kind, even if it's just a Bluetooth speaker.

So they're not seeing someone actually with the instrument in their hand and the microphone in front of their face necessarily.

So when they see that, they can see how it's done, that it's possible to do, just you and a guitar or a mandolin or a banjo, whatever.

- Yeah, yeah and it's I'm sure important for a lot of families because concerts are getting more expensive to put on.

And so the ticket prices for adults have to be at a level where you can pay the bills and make a little bit of a profit.

Yeah and we are at Poss Music Works does this as a not-for-profit.

We're a 501(c)(3) but we do still like to break even on the events and that sort of thing.

But we've managed to keep our costs down.

I mean, our prices haven't gone up for the festivals in a few yeas.

And our prices for our shows are generally 20 to $30 depending on the performer.

So that's like compared to a national touring act, I mean, some of our people are national touring acts but I mean compared to Taylor Swift for example, you know, you're gonna mortgage the house for a couple tickets.

- It's really interesting how that has gone up so much higher than the rate of inflation around the country.

I've been to a few concerts in the last few years and it really has changed.

So again, that offering of when an adult purchases a ticket to have a child be with them without an admission charge is really powerful.

You also are a musician, as I said.

You started at age six and you travel around the country as well as a musician.

Tell me about that.

- I just got back from eight shows in nine days, a tour sort of the west Midwest: Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri.

I started touring.

I basically I took an odd path.

I kinda gave up the music for a while.

I still loved it.

I still listen to it.

But I went to college.

I went to law school.

I graduated law school in '94.

Went to Austin, Texas where all my favorite songwriters were: Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, all these guys.

- Great town.

- Yeah, Patty Griffin.

Got there thinking I would be a music lawyer.

And then I just started playing shows.

And I was like, "I wanna do this.

"I don't wanna be a lawyer."

And it was disturbing to my mother and my father but I did it anyway.

And I had a friend who was on a major, not a major folk label, Rounder Records, probably the biggest folk label.

And he had some good advice.

He said, "Bill, you need to get away from Austin."

I'd been there for a couple years playing shows.

And he said, "You need to get away from Austin."

So get away from all my friends who would come out and support me.

He said, "You need to get better at all this stuff "'cause you've been studying law for the last three years "and before that in college.

"You need to get into the game "of writing, playing, singing."

And so I said, "Okay."

I sold everything I owned and I moved to the Virgin Islands, lived in a tent for a couple months on the beach and played my guitar and worked on my craft.

And when I came back in the spring, I bought a camper top for my truck and I just basically hit the road.

And I didn't take no for an answer.

I just kept playing.

- That's amazing.

- It was 1996.

- And you're also a songwriter.

Tell me about your songwriting process and how that's connected to your decision to do this as a career.

I mean and leave the idea of becoming an attorney in practice, I mean, you are an attorney but to work as an attorney and instead work as a musician.

- The whole reason I got into doing what I wanted to do was because of songwriters, people like John Prine, Bob Dylan, more John Prine, the storytellers, the ones who got up there and just they were so capable of spinning a yarn and telling a true story maybe or just telling whatever there is on their mind but making it interesting.

And then a song that relates or maybe in some case doesn't relate but setting it up, you know what I mean?

And just entertaining people with stories and songs for a couple hours.

So that's a long way around answering your question.

My process is to find something that people can really relate to now.

Now, I started out writing songs about food and dogs.

And people can relate to that but it was a way for me to get into writing without actually revealing myself, you know?

And it took a long time to have the confidence and the art to back it up, you know, the confidence to do it and the art to back it up and actually craft the songs about love and about sadness and about, you know, heartbreak, death.

A lot of my recent songs have been about death and dying and the next phase of existence, if there is one, and you know.

- So it sounds like part of your songwriting process is writing about things that are on your mind at the time or have affected you in some way.

- Almost all of my songs start out with an idea, frequently a phrase.

And when a phrase comes that's poetic or artistic and I can see how it means maybe more than one thing, maybe it means more than just the thing that's being said and maybe it could be a metaphor for a larger topic or a more intimate topic, then that's where I start.

And then I start, I try to create either, you know, a couple of lines that go together or maybe a verse or maybe a chorus.

And then I start seeing how it sounds when you sing it.

And I try different, few different ways.

I don't have a guitar in my hand yet, you know.

I'm just kinda looking at it and try to come up with a melody.

And then I get the guitar, when I find something I like, then I get the guitar and then it usually morphs a little bit more because I make a change in the melody.

And then I fill it out, you know, then I finish it.

And sometimes the finishing part takes a long time.

I could write a chorus for you right now but it might take me two weeks or three weeks or maybe six months to finish writing the song.

- To finish it, yeah.

I find that songwriting process really interesting.

I have interviewed artists who say that the music and the words come to them simultaneously.

And then there are other famous artists, as you know, who only write lyrics.

They partner with others on music.

I would bet that what you've described is more common: the story, the lyrics, and then music.

- Yeah, I mean, mine's kind of a stair-step approach.

You know, start with an idea.

And then add some music.

Then add some more words.

And add some more music.

And maybe modify the music.

Maybe add a bridge, you know, musically.

I do love to write with other people.

It's rarely a music over here and a music or lyrics over here, music over here kind of thing.

It's more often it's more of a, "Hey, "let's write this together," and kinda going through it and working it.

I'm writing one of those right now in fact.

And I got this songwriter from Arkansas.

And he and I have been working on this.

My wife has also been involved.

And it's taken forever but it's really a great song.

And so it's like worth the effort.

But yeah, Bernie Taupin is an example of someone who I really respect that was just a lyrics writer.

I don't know that he even knew how to play music.

I don't know much about him personally but I know his songs.

But Elton John of course took and added the music to him.

- Yeah, it's just amazing.

Yeah, there was a wonderful special on PBS recently with the two of them and honoring them with the Gershwin Prize.

So it's really wonderful if folks who are watching this can watch on their PBS app, if they have PBS Passport.

Let's talk about your music business, Poss Music Works.

That was part of the introduction of this show.

Tell us about that and how you started that after being a musician.

- Yeah, well, as I said earlier, I was on the road going to a lot of festivals and I couldn't help but have the feeling when I was at these festivals.

I was just thinking, "This would be a dream job for me "to present festivals," 'cause I love all these artists and I would love to be the curator of the schedule.

And if I just had the right location, I would start a festival.

And I didn't have any money.

I had just gotten divorced, moved home to Effingham after being on the road for all these 18 years at that time.

And so I got back to Effingham.

Yeah and when I got there, my brothers were all there.

My mom was there.

And I thought, "What am I gonna do?

"I got no job, I got no money, I got no prospects."

And so I thought, "I'm gonna start that festival."

And I started looking around and I realized that a friend of mine had a marina on Lake Sara, just outside of Effingham.

Next to the marina, there's a, well, there was a stage that he had built but he had quit using it.

So it needed a lot of cleanup and work.

Right next to that stage was a campground.

Perfect, right?

Right next on the other side was a beach.

Fantastic.

Playground right there.

There's just golf course right there.

I was like, "Oh my God, this place is like "built to be a festival."

And so we made a deal.

And the deal was simple.

It was like, "I take the gate, you take the bar, "and we'll have a festival."

And so with about six or seven volunteers that helped me a lot, we started the Moccasin Creek Festival in 2014.

And that sort of snowballed.

And we started doing more shows.

And then we added other festivals.

And I thought, "You know what?

"We're gonna turn this into a legitimate business," not just my own personal business but we made the leap to form a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit and we called it Poss Music Works.

And that's how that started.

We were very glad.

We sort of think of southern Illinois as our territory.

Now, you folks, or not you necessarily but the folks down here tend to think of Effingham as central Illinois.

But if you ask the folks in Chicago, we are definitely in southern Illinois.

So I think of that as southern Illinois.

But Makanda is really southern Illinois.

That's how we expanded down to this area was some friends of mine run the Touch of Nature Outdoor Education Center, which is part of the SIU campus.

And it's a remote campus.

And they invited me to do a festival there.

And so we formed the Little Grassy Get Down.

Now I'm legitimately southern Illinois.

- Well, and the Moccasin Creek Festival that you mentioned continues.

And this year it's June 20th through the 23rd.

So tell us, give us a preview.

Tell us about this.

- [Bill] This is our 10th year.

- [Fred] 10th year.

That's a big year.

- We missed one for Covid but this is our 10th festival that we've had.

This year, we feature Shiny Ribs on Saturday night as our headliner with some of my favorite songwriters in the world, Mary Gauthier.

We have Chris Smither, who I've been trying to get since the beginning.

I have never been able to get him until this year.

Great Bluegrass band from Wisconsin called Armchair Boogie.

On Friday night, our headliner from San Diego, California is Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express.

Excellent band and a lot of fun.

National Park Radio is gonna be coming.

They're making it big in the world.

Jaimee Harris, Jess Klein Band.

As I said, it's a small festival.

All of our festivals are, you know, you're thinking about like Bonnaroo or something.

These festivals are nothing like that.

This is like a boutique, like 500 people at most at one time.

We have flush toilets.

We have free parking right next to the event.

We have all the vendors you could possibly want: Food, vegetarian food, beverages of non-alcoholic, alcoholic.

We have arts and crafts vendors.

It's just a cozy space.

The whole thing is like 200 yards deep and 100 yards wide.

- And you have a great website.

So for folks who are interested, they can search for Poss Music Works, P-O-S-S, Poss Music Works, and find out more information about what you do and your festivals.

And again, it's the Moccasin Creek Festival is June 20th through the 23rd.

And as I said at the beginning, if someone joined us after the intro, it's at the stage at Lake Sara in Effingham, Illinois.

Believe it or not, we already only have about 10 minutes left and so I wanna ask you about some things related to the work you do as a musician and also as a concert promoter.

How in your view have live performances become more important for artists in the digital age that we're in?

- Well, I can tell you that as someone who's I mean, I've never been a star of any kind but I've been a touring artist for many, many, many years.

And there was a time when we could make records and, you know, shop them to radio and try to sell CDs and try to, you know, try to make money that way.

Almost all that's, I mean, there's still some radio that charts and stuff like that but really, the whole game these days, nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, it's really rare to sell a lot of CDs.

I used to be able to sell five or 10 CDs a night.

That's an extra 100 to 150 bucks for me.

Well, now that's gone.

I mean, I do have vinyl I can sell but still just the numbers are down.

And so for me to be able to perform a live show and get paid to do that, that's part of my living.

And if I can't do that.

But it's more than just that.

I mean, for the people in the world who are enjoying this stuff, it's like the difference between sitting on your couch and watching TV, which I appreciate that people do that and you guys have great programming for music and stuff.

But when you get out there and actually see somebody holding an instrument and playing and singing a beautiful song, especially one that they made up themselves, that's enriching.

You know, that's personally enriching.

And it's the difference between, you know, having a home-cooked meal or a chef-made meal and the difference between that and going to fast food restaurant.

There's just no art there.

You know, if you want art, you're gonna have to see the live event.

- Yeah.

It's powerful stuff.

You know, you talk about CDs.

Many of us have lots and lots of CDs.

And when CDs became popular, we never thought we would see this again.

And particularly when some folks have no physical media, they only have digital files of their music, younger people.

But oddly enough, now younger people and others are getting back into vinyl again.

Never thought that this would happen.

What is your reaction to this?

- Well, I'm with you.

I never thought it would happen.

But when I made my last recording called "Saltwater" 10 years ago, I had it pressed on vinyl because I was not selling any CDs.

And like on my recent tour, I just I sold at least as many if not more vinyls than CDs.

- Yeah, you go into some stores now and there are no CDs but there's vinyl, it's fascinating.

- We have a vibrant store in Effingham called America's Groove.

And the people, I mean, people love that stuff.

- And they love the vinyl.

I loved it growing up but just never imagined that it would come back.

- I have a collection.

- You have a collection.

- I have about 1,000 records.

- And folks who are watching should know, you know, if you got some old records, you probably ought to hold onto them because they're worth more than you might think too.

People are paying big money for some older records.

- Yeah, if you wanna give 'em away, give 'em to me.

- Yeah, there you go.

They'll call you up.

You know, whether it's online or through recordings, what is your advice for people who do wanna promote their music?

- Well, I would say three things about it.

The first thing I would say is get some actual good product.

Make sure your product is up to standards, you know.

That's a big mistake that people make.

Oh, I just cut this thing and I'm gonna spend some money, you know, promoting it.

The second, so get a good product.

Second thing is don't be afraid to spend money.

That's the whole reason that the marketing industry exists is because they do their job.

They get eyes and ears on your product.

And if you're not willing to promote it and to pay to promote it, there's not a whole lot of point in spending a lot of money creating it.

You can have a great song and sing it for your kids or whatever, that's fine.

But if you wanna be in the market, then market it.

Those are the main points.

I would say.

- And this, speaking of mart, this is part of tourism, the arts.

And in Illinois has been promoting tourism in the state more.

What do you think Illinois could do to better promote the music scene, foster the music scene, and make that part of that kind of tourism infrastructure in the state?

- Well, you know, it depends on their goal.

If their goal is to bring people in from other states, I can tell you the thing that I could use is more money for billboards.

We've never had a billboard.

We have one now.

But this is the very first time we've ever had one.

They're enormously expensive.

And for a festival, you're only gonna use it for so long because, you know, you're gonna change the lineup every year so you're gonna have to get a new billboard.

It's gonna cost you more money.

But there are billboards all across the state that are sitting there saying, "Rent me."

And you know, if we had a, you know, somebody in that office, in the tourism office, that would say, "I'm gonna find these ones that, you know, "we'll rent it for three months for you.

"All you got to do is pay for the banner "that goes up there and having it installed."

I would take that deal every day.

And I know every other festival promoter would do that if they had the opportunity, that's one idea.

Another idea is if they want to help create better artists, then small grants for things like for example promoting.

You know, if you wanna say, "I made a record, "here it is, and I wanna promote it.

"I need about, you know, $3,000 to promote it.

"Could you give me half of that?"

Then the tourist department decides if you're legitimate or not.

I don't know if there's a process, you know, that you'd go through, but say, "Yeah, here's $1,500."

They could, for the money that they put out, they put out a lot of money and they're doing a lot of work and I commend them for that but that's an easy way to actually help people get better and broaden their careers.

- Yeah.

Got about two minutes left.

And I wanna start where we began.

And the work that you do to foster arts education, how important is it to the future of music and how can we make music more available to more people, fostering arts and arts education among young people?

- Well, you can support Poss Music Works.

'Cause that's what we do.

I have shows this summer.

We'll be doing youth open mics.

We'll be doing kid shows.

I play for five and six-year-olds.

I go to farmers' markets and just try to get people out there.

And I hire other people to do this also.

Just to try to get it in front of people so that they can, "Oh my gosh, "this is actually a real thing that people do."

And then I could do it too, you know?

Of course, the schools used to have a role to play in that and they still could.

I don't know, I hear people complain all the time that their funding has been cut.

So you know, when you think about let's, you know, give the schools less money, that's the first thing they do is they cut the arts.

They don't cut the football program so much.

But that's my take.

- Yeah and of course, parents can have a role too, like your mom who and your dad who helped foster your love of music and gave you a chance to have lessons and then took you to concerts and that's really special.

- Take your kids.

Take your kids to concerts.

That's a big thing.

- Yeah, it's really neat.

Really, really neat.

Well, Bill, best of luck to you as you travel the country playing music and of course with the Moccasin Creek Festival, June 20th through the 23rd at Lake Sara, Effingham.

It has been great to talk with you today and meet you.

And appreciate you and the work that you do.

- Thank you very much.

I appreciate you having me, Fred.

- Thank you for being here.

Thank you at home for exploring the Heartland with us.

Have a great week.

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