A few years back,  The Kids gave me a B-day present of 2 tickets to James Taylor and Carole King.  This was doubly fun since I knew JT back as a teenager when he couldn’t get 300 ppl in a local hall.  But the star of the show was Carole King who I think was 68 at the time……….such energy! What a great time.  Last year, 1/2 of The Kids (with his wife) took me to the Houston Rodeo and we got to hear Sugarland. Another blast! (made up for the month I was there helping them to re-hab a house they bought).
 
Carlton, I just read a murder mystery that was based around a country singer………….”XO” by Jeffery Deaver.  The interesting point made there was with the internet and places like Youtube, Torrent, etc, folks can now get all the music they want for free. So the only way for performers to really make any $$ these days is to do a LOT of touring/concerts and also selling on the paraphenalia that is hawked at those things. Or to get movie soundtrack gigs or commercials.
 
As an aside, Deaver is a great mystery writer, but once upon a time was a folks singer, so there’s a lot of industry insight in the book