While a certain amount of raw talent — and a little luck — are both key ingredients to any successful music career, any artist who’s made it past the open-mic stage knows that the key to success (and survival) is a formidable mix of business savvy, street smarts and a whole lot of hard work. Or, as Terri Hendrix calls it, “The Part that Ain’t Art.” Terri is the first to admit she learned much of what she knows today about the music business the hard way, but learn she has, and the results — critical acclaim, awards, headlining experience at many of the country’s most renown music festivals and listening rooms and an international grassroots fanbase — all speak for themselves. And Terri, together with famed producer and multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, is as adept at teaching both “the part that’s not art” and the creative process of songwriting as she is at running her own business and performing on stage. 

In addition to recording and performing together for the last ten years, Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines have led a number of popular workshops at festivals (Mountain Stage Newsong Festival, Old Number Nine, and Kerrville Folk Festival) and performing arts centers (Berklee School of Music in MA, South Plains College in TX, and Swallow Hill in CO) on topics ranging from songwriting to production to the brass tacks of running an independent label, touring and building a loyal fanbase. Their “Life’s a Song” writing workshops, held at a studio/theater in Port Aransas, Texas, sells out way in advance. Veterans of “Life’s a Song” — many returning year after year — gain a unique and fully-rounded perspective on the art of song craft, gleaned from Terri’s “free form” approach to creative writing (along with her solid background in classical music, having studied on scholarship at Hardin Simmons University) and Lloyd’s emphasis on song structure. Marshalling and maintaining inspiration is also covered in depth, both from Terri’s perspective as a do-it-yourself, former-starving-artist-turned-award-winning-songwriter and Lloyd’s decades of experience as an in-demand producer and all-around studio guru, with credits including the Dixie Chicks, Ani DiFranco, Wilco, Jerry Jeff Walker, Robert Earl Keen and Pat Green. 

In addition to songwriting, Terri and Lloyd also have a wealth of shared experience on the business and recording end of the music industry. Lloyd has logged thousands of hours in the studio as a producer and even more miles on the road as an in-demand steel guitarist. Terri, meanwhile, has learned every nook, cranny and corner of the music industry on a grass roots level, having released nine albums (with a tenth under way) on her own label, Wilory Records, and built up a fanbase now 50,000 strong. She knows first hand how to balance a music career and a fulltime job, how to make music your fulltime job, how to hire the right team and keep it on track and how to market independent releases effectively on a budget. She has contributed a guest column on the topic of running your own label to Texas Music magazine and is currently writing a how-to guide on the music business — titled, of course, The Part That Ain’t Art.