Music touches our lives in many ways. We grieve with music, celebrate with music, and heal through music. But when the pandemic put a halt on live music performances, find out how a program called MusiCares, the non-profit arm of the Recording Academy, stepped in to help. In this episode, we speak with one of the most influential women in music, Debbie Carroll, the VP of Health and Human Services for MusiCares. Tune in and learn the psychological benefits of music for various mental health conditions!

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The Impact Of Music On Mental Health With Debbie Carroll

Welcome everyone to Understanding the Human Condition. I’m your host, Dr. James Flowers, with a severe case of bronchitis by the way. Pardon my voice. Of course, I’m joined by my lovely co-host, Robin French, welcome.

Dr. Flowers.

How are you?

I’m good.

I’m glad you’re here.

Thank you, I’m excited about our episode. Finally, we get to talk about something that connects us all, music, philanthropy, and helping those in need during difficult times.

Something special to my heart is this group right here.

Of course, we’re going to discuss the benefits of music on our mental health.

We have an incredible guest joining us today, Debbie Carroll. She’s been honored in Nashville as one of the most influential women in music, which is amazing. Tell me if I get this right. She’s the vice president of health and human services for the Recording Academy and MusiCares, Debbie Carroll. She’s a licensed clinical social worker.

That was perfect. I’m actually not with the recording academy. We’re separate entities, but you got the title correct.

There you go. Perfect.

All good.

Debbie, of course peripherally been involved in MusiCares through the treatment side of it and knowing a lot of you guys, both in California, New York, you in Nashville. I love MusiCares and what you guys do. I want the audience to know whatever you’re willing to tell us about MusiCares. Why don’t you give us all a little synopsis of MusiCares?

MusiCares

Easy topic. First of all, I want to say thank you to you and all of the generous support that you provided our clients and MusiCares through the years.

Thank you.

We really couldn’t do what we do without the support and generosity of people such as yourself. Thank you so much for that. Really from the bottom of our hearts. MusiCares, we are a safety net for the music industry and we provide a variety of health and wellness services to music people in times of need. Our main goal is to keep the music industry healthy and well so they can continue to do what they do best, which is providing and creating music that the rest of us know and love. We’ve been in operation since 1989.

Since that time using the pandemic as an example, but this year in particular, we’ve obviously been very busy. We will end this fiscal year, which is the end of July, distributing over $27 million to over 36,000 music people in New York. To put that in perspective over that, we launched our COVID relief efforts in March of 2020. In a typical year, our last landmark year, we’ve scaled and grown every year since I’ve been with the organization.

We served 8,600 clients with about 6.3 to 6.5 million. It’s over 300% plus volume than what we typically do. Of course, we did so with the support of the music industry and so many organizations and entities that could see that the music community was suffering and really in dire need and supported us profoundly in a way that we could help others. We announced our effort with $2 million, a million dollars from the Recording Academy, and a million dollars from MusiCares, which is significant.

We knew we could probably be criticized somewhat for that $2 million, what’s that going to do? As I continue to tell our powers that be that $2 million helps 2,000 people. At the end of the game, we’ve done our part to help support people. We began vetting 500 applications per day. We were drinking from a fire hydrant.

I’ll use Shereen as an example over in Los Angeles. I remember one day we had a conversation and it was just normal conversation like we’re having right now. I think I didn’t hear from her for a month. I’m like, “Are you okay?” She’s like, “No, I’m not okay. You wouldn’t believe what we’re going through.” All’s lives just in March of 2020 Along with the rest of the country, but in particular, because of the importance of what you do was just flipped upside down. What was that like for you?

I’m a glass-half-full type of person. Also if there’s a challenge in front of me, I will do whatever it can. It’s maybe behind the scenes, it gets a little messy, but outwardly, it looks like everything’s buttoned up. We had responded to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and that was a long time ago, but yet we quickly built an infrastructure to help support that need. At the end of the day, through our Katrina efforts, which lasted a year or more, I think we assisted, I don’t know, 5,000 or 6,000 individuals.

It wasn’t a nationwide pandemic or worldwide pandemic, it was very centralized in one location. When we began discussing this and doing something and responding to the need, I said, “We’ve got this. We’ll make sure that we can certainly build a stronger foundation to support this.” Yet, I didn’t have a clue really what that volume would look like. There were a lot of stops and starts, but yet we got the job done. I am incredibly proud of the fact that we were able to do that. Again, with some messiness behind the scenes, in all honesty, but who wouldn’t expect that we were able to get support to people quickly?

I think a misconception that I hear all the time out in my field, which is substance use and mental health, is that MusiCares helps musicians and it is so much more than that. It is so much deeper. I’m always educating people about it but you said the music industry expands on that a little bit. Who does MusiCare support?

Our mission is to support as many people as we possibly can within our mission. We provide funding for bus drivers, lighting tech guys, crew, merchandise managers, merchandise support, songwriters, musicians, really the scale of what we define as music industries. If somebody has been working in the industry for at least five years in some capacity and or has six commercially released recordings or videos. Those can be back of the bus independently recorded. For the pandemic, we also realized that the roadies, the crew guys were most vulnerable because all of the live events were shutting down. We reduced that eligibility to three years with also the caveat that individuals with a year or more experience were encouraged to apply.

We wanted to again, help as many people as we possibly could. We have the ability, which is one of the main things I think is so lovely about music here is that even if somebody doesn’t exactly meet that eligibility but there’s a need, particularly if it’s related to a medical situation or an addiction issue and we have the ability to provide compassionate grants. It may be that they’re not quite there or it’s an extenuating circumstance or how they define the music industry is not right, not completely within the realm of what we do because we want to be charitable. We want to help people when they’re in need.

I was telling Robin, you a little bit earlier, we were talking about what MusiCares is. I was giving you my little spiel about MusiCares. It’s more than just substance use and mental health. It’s dental. It’s whatever I care. Whatever that health care need is.

I like to say, the life pothole that an individual may hit, we help bridge that gap over that experience. It could be lost or stolen instruments to natural disasters, to addiction, and mental health support, which is obviously of utmost importance to us right now because there’s certainly a higher propensity for those types of struggles at the moment but general financial needs too. For example, be working in their yard and fall off a ladder and break their leg and they’re no longer or were not able to tour prior to the pandemic, we can help them with living expenses while they recover or medical expenses.

Dental needs and medical costs too are a big part of what we do. We do so with confidentiality. That’s very important to us because we realize that when somebody is struggling, reaching out can be so difficult. We want to be able to let people know and assure them that when they call us we will keep that private and that it’s between us so therefore they can reach out to us with confidence and know that they will keep that.

When somebody is struggling, reaching out can be so difficult.

Going back to talking about substance abuse and then going back to March of 2020. I remember in March being here in Houston, it hadn’t hit like it had in New York or Los Angeles. In my little brain, it’s like, “Is this as bad as we think it is?” A friend of yours and a friend of mine died of COVID and that’s Neil Lasher.

That just gave me chills when you said his name.

Me too. What a loss that was.

Tremendous loss. I mean Neil had been a supporter of ours for decades and I was one of the first people backstage at our safe harbor friends which are clean and sober rooms at major music award shows and festivals. Without Neil there, it really wasn’t a safe harbor room. He was a face behind that and his beautiful partner Jill. Seeing and knowing Neil who dedicated his life too in helping people with addiction issues.

I had just seen him during the Grammy. I had heard he was sick and he passed away so quickly. He was unfortunately one of many people that I know by name who lost their lives due to COVID. You’re right, that certainly hit home with how profoundly serious this was because I was a little bit like you. We were stuck in Colorado. We weren’t really stuck in Colorado. We were in Colorado. My husband said, “Do we need to come back?” I said, “Worst case scenario, we drive.” The flights were shut down, but then the whole world just stopped so abruptly.

Speaking of Neil being at the UC and him at the Grammys, I didn’t get to go to the Grammys last year, but I remember watching it from home. This is how significant he is I don’t remember who was performing on the circle but he was standing next to them in the audience. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

I was like, “There’s Neil. I’m not sure.”

It might be with Gaga.

It was.

I think it was Lady Gaga and that performance was so amazing. There was Neil.

There was Neil right there and everybody was texting and it was so funny, but yeah, what a loss. Robin.

Favorite Stories

No, I just want to hear some more stories because everyone loves stories like one of some of your favorite stories. You’ve been doing this for a long time.

Favorite stories, gosh. The stories around music here is MusiCares as it is such a beautiful organization. I’ll say one of the things that attracted me to MusiCares on the front end was just this notion of an entity that takes care of its own. Particularly a group of people who are so incredibly giving and loving and supportive of one another. That also shows in spades through the support that we received through the pandemic, yet music people are just lovely. There are many lovely people out there, but I realized very quickly what a unique group of individuals they were.

When I was first hired by MusiCares, I was not really seriously interested in the position. I had young twins at home and didn’t want to work full-time, wasn’t sure I wanted to work for a charity, and I certainly didn’t want to travel. A little did I land a dream job that I say I won the life lottery when I was able to work for MusiCares. I will always say that because again, it’s an organization with a mission.

I’m not answering your question, but in terms of stories, I’m trying to think of the stories that hit home the most, and this maybe won’t be as profound to your readers, but they’re the everyday stories of the UNIs of the world who have an issue or have a struggle. They call you a year down the road or they call you several months down the road and say, “What you did for me was life changing. You saved my life.”

I wish we could take credit for that. We don’t. I often say that is very kind and we didn’t save your life. You saved your life, but we were the catalyst to help get you to the support that you needed. You all do that work every day as well. I’m thinking of one individual in particular that we recently worked with together, who couldn’t be more lovely, and the trauma and challenges that this person has faced and to see the joy and the light and just all that he has today. Those are the stories that are so amazing.

I completely agree. Those are also the stories that remind me why I do what I do every day. It is because of people like him. What an honor to work with him.

He has so much joy. I mean, just pure joy in life.

Beautiful human.

I hope it’s okay if I talk about this for a second but the way in which providers work with MusiCares is they will call whether it’s a dentist or me or whomever and say, “We have a particular client that needs your skill set and would you do this?” It’s basically a scholarship fee and which is yes or no, can you do this and we think you’re the person that would be able to help this person. It’s part of us giving back.

All the providers out there reading that are amazing providers in this industry is that working with these people is such an amazing, whether again it’s a janitor or a bus driver or whomever it is in the music industry, they’re artists by nature, no matter what they do in the music industry because it’s their passion. It just gives me this peace going, I love working with this industry because they’re such amazing artists. Again, no matter what they do within the industry, they’re amazing.

Grateful too. There’s nothing like being with someone who’s so grateful. He was baking for us, remember?

He baked.

He baked homemade things for us. I mean, he was lovely.

That’s wonderful.

Impetus For MusiCares

What was the impetus for MusiCares and what group of people, if there was a group of people, how did MusiCares come about?

There was a group of people. The story is that after Woody Herman, who was a legendary jazz artist, I was virtually homeless and alone. A group of music executives and artists got together and said, “This is a tragedy. We cannot allow people who have given so much to the world through their craft to die destitute.“ I hear this often, that people have this perception that musicians are all wealthy or if you’re a guitar player for a well-known musician, you’ve got to be making income.

The reality behind that is that’s not the case and that music people don’t have those safety net benefits that most other professions have. They don’t have a 401k account. They don’t have insurance coverage. They’re independent contractors. If anything happens where they lose their job, they lose all of their livelihood. They’re a very vulnerable population. The average musician makes between $25,000 and $35,000 a year.

Music people don’t have those safety net benefits that most other professions have.

When you think about all the people who perform in restaurants, and some people perform for a beer and a burger, which is a horrible form of livelihood as well. That craft within music people, it’s an innate, born something that they cannot not do. If they don’t work in music, that’s something that’s unfathomable for them. Hence, that’s what we do and hence why MusiCares was started in the first place.

I mean, I said to somebody recently, or I’ve said this before in the past, say, “What would be deemed a success for MusiCares?” I said, “Success for MusiCares would be when we are no longer needed as a foundation.” The support for people is there and they have what they need to live a life through this craft and through this industry. It would be a lovely day when music here is no longer needed.

It will indeed. Exactly. Thank you for telling that story. I knew there was a story to the beginning of MusiCares and obviously comes out of a need. You guys are also answering really the call around the world for diversification. Tell us about your new president.

Harey Mason Jr., was amazing. He’s been in the home for many months and had publicly let everyone know that he really wasn’t interested in the job. It was a surprise to all of us when he agreed and he’s a lovely man and an amazing leader. I think it’s a very bright moment for MusiCares. In addition, we now have a new leader with MusiCares, Laura Segura, who was with the Recording Academy prior in member services. She’s a very talented, very tenacious, smart, strong female and we’re thrilled to have her as well. We’ve got lovely new leadership within the academy.

That’s great. Headed in the right direction, right?

Yes.

Inclusivity

There’s a new huge focus on the LGBTQ community and the black community and so changes in the air, huh?

Changes is in the air. I will say this, based our foundation on, we are there for everyone. We’re there to support everyone. I kept saying we do support everyone. Yet, I also realized, we’ve realized through the past several months that we haven’t been as purposeful and intentional, or strategic about how we reach underserved populations. We can say we’re inclusive of all, but if some folks are not, or different populations are not feeling that we’re doing that or not feeling like we’re approachable or we’re trustworthy, then we’re not doing our job as a foundation.

Laura’s really helped emphasize that fact. It’s been eye-opening for me, quite honestly, that knowing, and feeling as inclusive as I feel like I am, but yet I’ve learned a lot over the past several months. We’ve hired some consultants internally to try to look at our policies and how we approach our work and are we being inclusive in our messaging. Also, how are we approaching clients? We’ve now, again, much more strategic about the offerings that we have for underserved populations. It’s been really fun to see that for us to be moving the needle in that regard, we made a promise to the black music community that we would double our activations within this year from what we did in previous years.

I’m proud to say I’m running some stats for our board meeting, but we’ve well exceeded that. Which is great. Hearing from communities that typically maybe don’t have as much of a voice is also lovely. We’ve added three new groups for women, the black music community, and also the LGBTQ community as well. Again, just their different needs and different issues that communities have to face, and we want to make sure that we address all of those.

That’s so amazing. Congrats on that.

Thank you.

Finding MusiCares

Couple more quick questions before we run out of time.

One big question that I have, because again, I’m learning as we go along here, being fairly new to J. Flowers, how did the underserved find you? How does that work?

How are they in the past?

How did they find you, MusicCares?

Really anyone.

Anyone, really.

Anyone in need of help in the industry.

How did they find you?

For the most part, prior to this past year, a lot of our scale and growth have been word of mouth, which is not necessarily the smartest marketing tool. We have a new marketing team on board, which is helping us in that regard. We’re hiring a firm to help us with marketing. We have a new PR firm as well. We’re certainly amping up our messaging so people know that we’re there if they need us.

We also realized several years ago when we were mainly responding to disasters and challenges that people were having, we weren’t doing much in the prevention world. We then began interfacing again backstage at festivals or events or freestanding events with our community. We got out from behind our desks and began offering hearing protection or safe harbor rooms, which are clean and sober rooms, or various different dental clinics.

We’ve had dental clinics in union spaces, which is unique, yet there’s a huge need for that. We found that our preventative services are utilized so quickly that we’ll offer a dental clinic, for example, and within a matter of minutes it’s full. The supply and demand issues. We’re constantly looking for new providers who are willing to work with us and help us get the care that our folks are needing.

You bet, absolutely. Is Person of the Year going to happen this year?

Yes. Music on a Mission was wonderfully successful. We raised over $2 million with that first one. Incredible but yet there’s a lot of energy around Person of the Year. I know there are going to be some changes, but yet I think the general and overall flair of that event will be there. I’m a little biased, but I think it’s one of the best events during Grammy week.

It’s one of the funniest, for sure. It’s amazing. Good. I’m so glad that that’s coming back in some capacity anyway.

It is. It will be back. We’re excited about that as well.

Advice To People On The Road

What advice would you guys give to someone who’s on the road who’s trying to maintain their sobriety?

Dr. Flowers, I’m sure you can address this as well, but there are online platforms of support where you can connect people with therapists. We’ve also been known to bring meetings to folks if their profile is such that they cannot really leave a venue to go take in a meeting. There are sober coaches. We can connect people. If they let us know their tour schedule, we can connect them with sober people at the different tour stops that can either just take them to a meeting or just provide support. I know many artists now, thankfully are very focused on supporting people in their crew that are sober. There are some tours that are completely sober.

I would have nothing really to add to that. I think that they do an amazing job supporting recovery within the venues, and outside of the venue, and connecting people in recovery with other people in recovery to support them along their tour.

That’s great that they have that.

Yeah, absolutely.

The Human Condition

We have to wrap this up because we’ve got our two-minute warning here, but what are your thoughts on understanding the human condition? What does that mean to you?

The human condition is so varied and beautifully unique. Understand that people intrigue me. I think that was another reason why I got into this field and people’s stories intrigue me, but people don’t have to be defined by their stories. Understanding the human condition, I should have thought about this before this call.

People don’t have to be defined by their stories.

No, that is all right.

Is really going deep and understanding and getting to know people on a deep level versus the surface of what is perceived that we all have struggles. We all have mental health challenges. Their life traumas that happen to all of us and being willing to again lean in to getting to know people and providing support and being curious to find out what their stories are to just help one another along the way. I think that’s something we all do that a little bit better that the human condition would certainly be a little healthier.

I would say that’s a home run on the way you describe what the human condition is. You think quick on your feet as well.

Thank you.

Homerun.

Debbie, thank you so much for taking the time. I know how busy you are, especially right now with the world going on as it is. We love supporting you guys. Thank you for the support you give to so many people around the world.

Thank you.

Thank you for the work that you two do. This has been a pleasure. These 30 minutes went by very quickly.

It did, didn’t it?

I always tell people it just passes so fast, yeah.

What’s the best way for our audience to reach MusiCares?

The best way is through our website, which is MusiCares.org. We have a variety of different avenues to reach us on that website. I’ll quickly also say that we have just announced our final phase of COVID relief. If there’s a music person who’s tuning in who could utilize some support, there’s an online application for that. It’s a very simple process. We’re issuing checks directly to clients, which is a little bit different than what we’re doing. Finally, for the people who need us, we’ll reach out in that way.

MusiCares.org.

Yes.

Excellent. We’ll send people there too.

Thank you. Dr. Flowers, if they’re trying to reach J. Flowers, how do they reach you?

Same thing, JFlowersHealth.com, I think is the easiest way to reach us.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Debbie.

Thank you so much.

Good to see you.

We know how busy you are.

Hope to see you soon.

Great to see you both. Thank you.

Take care, bye.

Bye.

I’d like to remind everyone watching or listening to us that there are numerous platforms to find our podcasts, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart Radio. Please share this episode on social media or with someone that you think would help. Thank you. We want to remind you that a clear diagnosis is the key to the most effective treatment possible. See you next week, everybody.

See you later, yep.

Bye. Thank you.

Sorry about my broad-kindness.

No, you’re not.

Thank you.

Bye, thanks, guys.

Bye, guys.

Thank you.

The Impact Of Music On Mental Health With Debbie Carroll [Episode 44]

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The Impact Of Music On Mental Health With Debbie Carroll

MusiCares

Favorite Stories

Impetus For MusiCares

Inclusivity

Finding MusiCares

Advice To People On The Road

The Human Condition

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