Meet Grant King

 

We were lucky to catch up with Grant King recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Grant, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

The first 3 people I think of who modeled generosity in my life:

1) My brother Kenneth (https://www.kennethkingmedia.com) has always been generous with his praise and encouragement for both my musical and design work. Since my earliest years he has continually shared his creative discoveries with me, encouraged my curiosity and creative energies, and suggested sources of knowledge and inspiration.
He read to me as a child from biographies of amazing champions like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass (we grew up in a WASP town, so this was unusual), and set learning tasks for me like reading the writings of Gertrude Stein and e.e. cummings, and, one summer, all of H.G. Wells’ novels. He also challenged me to learn typing in summer high school one semester, which proved fortunate and useful to this day, since I spend much time on computers.

2) My high school German teacher, Karin Martello, an activist, protestor, and oddity in the otherwise-staid 1970s school administration at Massapequa High School in NY. She taught me much more than just the German language: how to think, to dare, to dream. She strongly supported my music-making, telling me once after one of my first public singing appearances: “I see I don’t need to worry about you anymore!” She was generous with her time, talking with me after school hours, giving me vinyl recordings of classical music, notably by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky.
She once called me aside after class to show me an anonymous painting by a fellow student. “Can you please find out for me who made this painting?” she asked me. “This person is in trouble.” I did, and she intervened, but years later I learned that artist committed suicide.

3) I took brush-up classes at NYC’s School of Visual Arts with Eileen Hedy Schultz, years after my graduation from a Buffalo State College with a fine arts degree in graphic design. A gifted designer and photographer, Eileen would regularly impart useful tips and information about what to do and her colleagues to whom we might show our portfolios after we graduated from her class. Eileen was unfailingly generous with her praise and encouragement of others’ (and my) work. She led me to realize through her example that competitiveness can’t compare to the joy of freely sharing knowledge to lift others up.
One of my most cherished memories of Eileen was the day she took me to lunch and gifted me with the physical tools I’d need to create my first professional design portfolio. She told me she did this with one student per class, and that she knew I would want to turn her down, but that I must accept it and pay it forward in the future. Which I did, and aim to continue doing.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

After many years of eclectic creative design work, I’m primarily focused now on my music-making: my songwriting and singing. Nothing brings me more pleasure than “solving” the telling of a song/story (usually with many written drafts and edits), and then singing it for listeners, live or in a recording studio.

My latest album, REVIVED, features songs culled from both audio recordings (including old tape cassettes, remember those?!) and videotapes, of live performances I gave from 1982-2003. It contains my songs from solo live concerts, and from rehearsals with 2 gifted musicians, Tom McGrath (percussion) and Rob Meador (mandolin).

You can hear and learn more about REVIVED on my website, which I designed and continue to expand: www.knowmoresecrets.com. Also on that site are audio clips of 22 of my songs from my first two albums, LET LOVE OUT and BODIES OF WATER. (Perhaps interestingly, I nearly bankrupted myself making the first, and bankrolled the second using my earnings from my graphic design work years later.)

In addition to my music-making, I continue to produce creative work and offer consulting as a freelance graphic designer. I’ve always found my design and musical work dependent upon each other. As I say on my design site: “My creative life has always been a bit of a balancing act. Luckily, being a designer and a songwriter cultivates a new way of thinking that produces memorable creative solutions.”

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Keeping in my mind the cross-pollination of my music and design, the 3 common areas most impactful have perhaps been:
– Honoring my curiosity
– Always researching & learning new things (libraries have been sanctuaries to me from an early age)
– Listening to others vs talking to them

Re: advice: I’m not big on giving it. I’d simply echo what I’ve learned from other creatives: “Keep putting yourself out there.” Which I know can be scary…but essential!

“If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will destroy you.” —St. Thomas, Gnostic Gospels

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I’d like to find more singers who might like to cover my songs, and seek any creatives who may like to use my music in their own work (eg, films) to help bring my songs to a wider audience.

You can contact me at: [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you!

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Michael Biello, Phil Briggs, David Chick, Thomas Cover, Kim Hanson, Steven Katz, Grant King

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