Persona Non Grata

Before you think you’ve arrived at the wrong BLOG, I have decided to expand what I include here to some of the things I have been writing about spiritual things that are in step with my personal Music Business Background. I believe many people in the arts industries – movies, acting, writers – are going to begin to awaken to their need for more heart stability that can only be found in the Lord. They are just people.

Personal Spiritual Views
on the frame of my music background

Wrote & published this June 5, 2026

Funny. I was searching for images to depict “Persona Non Grata” running across some that showed T-shirts with that phrase written on it. I thought, Perfect! As in, BEEN THERE, DONE THAT & HAVE THE TSHIRT.

As I kept scrolling through to locate the perfect example I ran across my favorite musician-performer of my pre-Christian days, Gino Vannelli and his album Persona Non Grata. It was an album I never knew of, so I was surprised. But it works perfectly.

Gino should have been a major star but he ran into too much jealousy in the industry to break free from it. The more excited women became about him, the more critics panned him & concert promoters passed on him. His stage performance was sexy to the max, women loved it but the music industry always was essentially a male-dominated industry and they hated Vannelli.

Persona Non Grata continues

Gino kept trying to make musical adjustments to break through. He didn’t understand that it was not his music they objected to, it was his manly charms. After the first 3 albums Gino tried to adapt with a more pop-rock blend into his already sterling Jazz style. Still no American acceptance except in a few pockets where fans adored him. Dallas was one of those cities.

Later he would deep dive into Jazz and focus more on the European market. Europe welcomed Jazz greats like Gino Vannelli and Al Jarreau, another favorite of mine back in the day.

Lately I have been catching a lot of the great music from back in the day on X. Lots of great music, but I don’t miss those days being immersed in the music industry at all.

Like Paul said, “I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Messiah Yeshua my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Messiah, Salvation.”

I walked away, but I still appreciate good music. X has been bombarding me with posts with music hits and trivia. It is a diversion from the type of thing I seek out myself but I have been surprised at how much knowledge I have stored in my memory of music people. Some of you like crossword puzzles to keep your memory sharp. I don’t, but I have been shocked by all the useless information I have stored in memory about stars I didn’t even much care for back then: Stupid things like Cher’s make up artist marrying Greg Allman’s guitarist Dicky Betts after Cher & Allman divorced.

Or memories like the first time I ever went to a concert backstage. It was when I was in junior high and the concert was the Rolling Stones. Crazy. The promoters knew me & my friends from the teen hops and rescued us from the crush of the crowd waiting to be let into the auditorium. They put us to work putting fliers on all the chairs, then after the concert invited us to go see the backstage where the Stones had been. The backstage ‘amenities’ were hot dogs. Which should tell you something about how early in the concert era I am talking about.

The promoters took us back only after the Stones had left the building but we got to be in a place others would have loved to gone through too. In the years I was working in the concert industry, backstage became a natural place for me to be. Whether I was there to do a concert review, an interview, as part of the ticket sales team, or even as fan, I always knew how to access backstage without serious challenge from security. All it takes is acting like you belong there.

The point of this post is about when you don’t feel like you belong, but like you are PERSONA NON GRATA.

I have felt like that many times in my life . . . maybe you have too. This one thing I know: I am not Persona Non Grata to God. He is leading me and I will follow Him no matter what anyone thinks of that. You should too. And that is not “acting” like you belong, it is really and truly belonging.

FYI: Since coming to faith, after walking away from the music business like the addict that I was, COLD TURKEY, I have not spoken about my times in the music business, or about the concert acts, more than a dozen times. I slammed the door on that life, never to return to it.

Even now, I am not regaling “the good old days” because they weren’t that good. I see the lives of people who were in it and KNOW they are just like everyone else in the world. Underneath the facade of excellence in their talent or their sparkling stage presence, are people who in their personal lives are struggling with all sorts of issues of life. On the top of the world onstage, drowning in pain and sorrow when they are offstage.

Many times when God shuts the door on fame and fortune, it is for the sake of the person so they don’t get caught up in the glorification of the facade they live in, but so they are able to find Him in the disappointment that lack of fame and fortune brings them.