I was going to singer/songwriter nights around town and was looking for places to play. I knew that there were a lot of these nights on Bleecker Street, so I went and checked some of them out. I was really impressed with the talent on stage at the Red Lion. When I asked who was running it, they pointed to Ann, who was wearing that African hat that she wears to the Red Lion.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Barrett Zinn, a songwriter!” She suggested that I go to the Pro Shop meeting. I went the very next week. The demos I heard were pretty good. There was some talent, and I wanted to get into the Red Lion. When Ann heard my demo, she said, “You have great songwriting skills, but you need better musicianship. You should really come to my Saturday class.”

It was about four years ago that I followed her advice and joined the Saturday class. A year and a half after I started that, I also joined the Tuesday class, a performance workshop, where people come to play their stuff in front of others to hone their singer/songwriter skills.

Saturday class is a wonderful place to focus yourself on your music goals, and it provides you with the continuity needed to achieve them. It teaches you how to sing through sequential and through scales with consistency. It’s a great place for people with little musical training to find, in a loving and supportive environment, the skills they need to advance their musicianship.

Ann says, “The one way to make sure that you remain in the music industry is to make yourself useful.”

I realized after a couple of years that my greatest skills may not be in the performing arena. I find that I am good at communicating, and that I like teaching and mentoring kids. I realized after the second year that the teaching part of Saturdays really appealed to me. The challenge of getting music published and making money out of that side of it is kind of a mystical thing. You can work for years relentlessly and get nowhere, or drop something in a box and make money for years. I realized that I needed to make myself useful, and felt that I could do that as a teacher. So I was inspired by the need to be more useful, and went back to school at Hunter College. I am also teaching guitar privately.

Ann had a really unique and interesting and fulfilling life. I would love to be in her place in the business, to be a mentor to be around younger people. One reason that I like Ann’s class so much is that you get to see so many young, bright people coming through.

Having been in this class for almost three years, there has never been a group of singer songwriters who have been so talented. There are some really good singers in this class right now.

Ann’s program is exactly what musicians need in this day and age. In order to put out a piece of music, we essentially have to be self-sufficient. We have to be capable of writing, producing, playing the instruments, and playing all the notes, because there is no record industry to do that for us. The record industry is something that sells records, and it has been gone for a while. Even CD sales are plummeting.

Ann is teaching how to make music, not how to make recordings. The industry may change, but making music doesn’t change. It’s the same way now that it was a thousand years ago. The technology for recording it has changed, but they can’t replace the sound of a human voice.

Ann’s Legacy
Ann is an inspirational figure. Kind of a zelig. She shows up everwhere. She’s on the Grammy Boards. The Jazz Foundation. Songwriter’s Guild. Wherever you go in the music industry, you will find her in one corner or another. She’s always a supporting player, she never wanted to be a star. When you look at what happens to the stars, you can’t blame her.

The most compelling thing about Ann’s life is her personal strength. She has had a lot of adversity: a serious car accident, a couple of bouts with cancer, divorces, and other things involving family. But she’s there every week, three times a week, for her students, and she does it 51 ½ weeks a year. She shows up every week to work to do what she says she is going to do. I can’t pass judgment on anything that she does in her life, because in the three and a half years I have known her, she has never missed a gig.