Wyoming musical tour showcases entrepreneurial drive and creativity

Entrepreneurism is fed by constraints. Obstacles create situations that must be overcome, leading to success, or not, in which case failure results. And that's OK.

I've been reading the book "Worthless, Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value," by Daniel Isenberg, and one of the many quotes I've underlined is this: "A degree of adversity strengthens the entrepreneur and weeds out those without the required pluck."

And pluck is precisely the adjective I'd use to characterize the players in the WYOmericana Caravan, a musical tour featuring roots music acts that traveled through some of the loneliest, least inhabited territory in the USA. The tour was featured in a New York Times article.

Some excerpts from the piece that highlight the group's entrepreneurial pluck:

The caravan’s grass-roots style of self-promotion reflects a growing trend. “I’m seeing more and more artists who don’t have an agent or publicist but are finding creative ways to tour,” said Valerie Denn, a booking agent in Austin, Tex. As examples, she cites Dave Barnes, master of the “barnjo” (a hard-body electric banjo), whose coming itinerary takes him through Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan, and the Denver-based singer-songwriter Megan Burtt, who will be appearing at clubs in Colorado, California and Texas.

“Bands are pooling their resources, coming up with unusual packaging ideas,” Ms. Denn said. “They’re using social media to raise money, find free places to stay on the road or do house concerts between tour dates so they can pick up a little cash and sell some CDs. Crowdsourcing is the new norm among independent bands.”...

The caravan was inspired by the 2011 Railroad Revival Tour, in which members of Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and Old Crow Medicine Show traveled across the Southwest. “We wanted to replicate some of the camaraderie and spirit of that tour,” said [WYOmerica co-organizer Aaron] Davis, 35, “particularly the all-band jam sessions they did at the end of their shows. They just tore it up.”

Both that tour and the caravan featured musicians who claim fealty to the mash-up genre known as Americana, but the similarities largely end there. Mumford et al traveled across the balmy Southwest amid the comforts of the pristinely restored Silver Solarium train car, while the Wyoming bands piled into two vans and Mr. Shogren’s Toyota 4Runner, braving spring hailstorms, snow-clogged mountain passes and squalls that threatened to blow their vehicles into oncoming traffic. Just outside Missoula, Mont., after a long, winding, steep descent through Hellgate Canyon, Mr. Crossland discovered that he had blown a brake line when he pumped his pedal at the bottom of the gorge. “I think God wanted me to play Missoula,” he said.

And while Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros could choose among sleeper cars, Mr. Crossland curled up each night in his van, which is tricked out with a writing desk, coffee maker, wardrobe, banjo and guitar racks, and caches of food (mostly canned peaches). Hoping for warm weather, the others had planned to camp, but unusually frigid late-spring weather forced them indoors most nights.

By economizing, collaborating and focusing on a neglected part of the country, WYOmericana sounds like what it is: a scrappy, innovative startup. And it demonstrates how a beleaguered music industry might have a future after all.