So many times I’ve heard “All musicians want to be stand-up comedians, and all stand-up comedians want to be musicians.” Of course, its not always the case, but there are examples. Or those who were poets but couldn’t make it that way, so they combined music to make it more accessible. I remember Mort Sahl saying he always wanted to be a writer, but that it was hard to become established and said how anyone could get on an open-mic type of situation, and that he would reveal what was on his mind, using humor.
There’s two types. Those who actually had the talent to be what they intended to be, and those who didn’t, or in the least, would use the money they made with the artistic medium they settled for to further a different career; sometimes with success, many times without success. Some achieved that success after death, sometimes only because of the fanatics who buy-in and think because their hero was great at one thing, that they could do no wrong. Also after someone dies, you know they can’t create anymore, so you look for anything other than what you knew them for. Jim Morrison comes to mind. He never sang before, and wanted to be a successful poet and filmmaker.
Shirley Temple was a hugely popular and talented child actor in the 30s and into the 40s, but retired from the business when she was about 20. She went on to other business and then into diplomacy, being appointed as ambassador to both Ghana and Czechoslovakia. When I went to Prague for a project at the embassy, we were told that we would likely run into the ambassador and that we should not mention her film career, as she preferred to be known for her business and diplomatic acumen.
Ironically, though, I understand that it was because she was so well-known as a movie star that people knew of her and were willing to meet with her. Her showbiz career effectively opened doors for her.
And it’s not as if her Hollywood career ended when she was 20. Shirley Temple’s Storybook/Shirley Temple Theater aired on TV from 1958 to 1961 (she was in her 30s), and she continued to work in TV until the late 1960s
Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart, of course famous for music with his Magic Band, had also been a sculptor and painter his whole life. In the mid-eighties, he quit music for good and turned to art exclusively until his death, with respectable success.
I thought the thread was going a different direction so I was going to mention that John Finnemore (writer and performer of the SDMB-beloved “Cabin Pressure”) has another BBC sketch show program called “John Finnemore’s Souvenir Program” (you can find reruns on https://fourble.co.uk/podcasts). But one of the sketches, I think it’s in the 3rd series, hypothesizes Johann Pachelbel being invited to a dinner party. It is an absolute riot to have the hosts try to get him to play his only known piece. And actually I find that someone has uploaded it to YouTube.
While Paul McCartney does want to be recognized as a musician, in some of the interviews I’ve heard with him he sounds like he gets tired of people remembering him first an foremost as one of the Beatles rather than his post-Beatles work.
He gripes about that in concert as well. I saw him last month and he said the only time the audience whips their phones out is when he plays a Beatles song.
We once went to Garrison Keillor’s stage show (not the Prairie Home Companion) hoping for a lot of story-telling, and it turned out to be mostly singing.
When I was in college, my literature professor taught us that Shakespeare expected to be remembered for his sonnets and poetry, not the plays. We read the sonnets for sure, but the plays obviously make up most of our appreciation for him.
It’s not exactly what the OP was looking for, but several artists want to be remembered for what they’ve done, but not the particular piece everyone remembers.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wanted to be remembered for his historical novels, not Sherlock Holmes.
Tchaikovsky didn’t think much of The Nutcracker, and would have preferred being known for anything else.
Frank Gellett Burgess came to hate his most famous poem, “The Purple Cow”, so much that he wrote another poem condemning it. It ended with “But I can tell you anyhow/ I’ll kill you if you quote it.”
John Polidori, companion to Lord Byron and a participant at the famous “Haunted Summer” that gave rise to Frankenstein (among other things), wanted desperately to be remembered for his writings. He’s remembered today solely for the Vampyre, which he DID write that summer, but which a.) only got popular because people thought Byron wrote it, b.) he didn’t seem to have anything to do with getting published – he seems not to have ever tried to get it published, c.) was not the contribution he’d hoped would be recalled from that summer. The “ghost story” he wrotre ass his contribution was Ernestus Berchtold. Practically no one remembers Ernestus Berchtold, and with good reason – it’s awful.
In the Bravo TV interview I saw with him (eons ago) he said he picked up the banjo
Because it was something he could use in his comedy work
Because it has greater range and versatility than the jaw-harp
And yet I’ve seen YouTube videos of him doing some amazing stuff. Apparently he’s won grammy awards for his banjo compositions?
A biography of Freddy Mercury noted that, while he had some basic piano training and liked to sing, he went to college to be a visual artist.
A biography of Charlie Sheen noted that he wanted to be a pro Baseball player but some kind of injury thwarted that dream.
–G!
I don’t want to live forever by…
…by being remembered for the things I’ve done.
I want to live forever by NOT DYING!
[COLOR=“White”]…–Woody Allen[/COLOR]
