Its a great match for me.

I've been told I have a skill for bringing something others don't to a NH performance. I rarely get to hear other performers so its hard for me to comment. The few I've met have mostly seemed like good guys. A few are destroying their reputations and eventually their client lists if they don't get over themselves. (That's a story for another day...)

As the song goes, "I like old people." In some ways, the music is almost secondary to how I interact with the residents. I'm told often that somehow I walk in once a month and fit in with the residents like I'm there every day. That's a huge component of my NH work. I start "entertaining" from the moment I hit the door. It puts people at ease, makes them feel important and seems to give a lift to the whole activity.

For many of the same reasons Gary cited, its just what I prefer to be doing musically. I'm lucky in SW Ohio to have a diverse enough list of clients that I can be playing for a largely minority/urban crowd doing some old R&B stuff one day and the next find myself in hard core farmland where all they want is old time country and plenty of gospel. The next day, it may be a wealthy suburb where I play mostly jazz standards. It never seems to get old, it stays fresh.

Financially, this also makes more sense than almost anything else I've done musically, with the exception of jingles back in Pittsburgh when I was younger.

There's also less BS to be dealt with. Which is good, lol...