Carla Lynne Hall at Word Up Books in Washington Heights

Let’s talk about community and niches for a minute.

As you know, I live in New York City, where there are no lack of musicians and other creative folk. For my latest gig at Word Up, I deliberately chose it because it’s in my hood, Washington Heights.

If you’re a musician in NYC, you know how challenging it can be to get folks to come out to a gig, or to get press when there are so many other things going on on any given night.

BUT, by choosing to gig in my own neighborhood, I not only had a good crowd, I also got press in the Manhattan Times, the local paper for Washington Heights, Harlem, and Inwood. I mean the article was even written in English and Spanish. Even better, the writer Sherry Mazzocchi, did the interview on camera, so there’s a different video version of our time together (check it out below).

When’s the last time I got that from The New York Times? Uh… how bout never? ;-))

So you see, it pays to nurture your neighborhood!

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