Surviving with small steps

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part four in a six-part series that takes a look at the local music scene.

On a warm summer evening in June, Kerry Getz sang backup on an outdoor stage in Los Angeles with some of the most accomplished musicians in the world. Their names — Hal Blaine, Don Randi and Chuck Berghofer — may not have been familiar to the average listener, but their songs were: The legendary session players, part of the house band known as the Wrecking Crew, played on dozens of hits by the Beach Boys, the Byrds and other 1960s legends.

Getz, a longtime Newport Beach resident, had no No. 1 hits on her résumé, but she got the Wrecking Crew gig through a personal connection: Her friend, Shawn Bryant, had recently supervised the music for a documentary on the band, and he arranged a live performance to follow the film’s premiere. The show needed an extra female singer, so Getz — who was in kindergarten when the Wrecking Crew dominated AM radio — laid down vocals on “Be My Baby,” “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” and “California Dreamin’.”

The show didn’t pay any money, but Getz, who supports herself entirely as a performer, was willing to sing with her role models for free — once, at least.

“The opportunity to play with these guys was just too good to pass up,” she said.

Getz got home that night about 1 a.m., rested up for a day, then got back to work. In the coming weeks, she had to sing with the Wrecking Crew — with pay this time — for another of her friend’s documentaries; she had to prepare for her annual appearance at the Sawdust Art Festival in Laguna Beach; her next album was due out later in the year. In the life of an independent musician, it was a typical summer.

Seven years ago, OC Weekly proclaimed Getz the “minstrel” of Orange County. Her life hasn’t strayed from that path since. The singer-songwriter has released four albums on her label, World In Motion Records; she’s shared bills with Dar Williams, Richard Thompson and other well-known artists; for the last few years, she’s coordinated acts for the annual International Music Products Assn. convention in Anaheim, which brings hundreds of music industry professionals together.

Still, Getz cut her teeth as a small-venue performer, and that’s the world where she still thrives three or four nights a week. Earlier this year, she fell ill and underwent spine surgery — which made playing her guitar, among other things, difficult — but she got back to her normal regime by the end of the summer, playing repeated gigs at Sawdust and fitting in others at food courts, a winery and elsewhere.

That’s Getz’s most common performance spot: a sidewalk or a small outdoor stage with a tip jar and stack of CDs at the ready. Every year, she performs at Sawdust, an annual two-month event in which artists gather to lead workshops and ply their craft in public. She’s also strapped on her guitar at Winter Fantasy, the Sawdust’s sequel during the holiday months. When Laguna Beach hosts its First Thursdays Art Walk, with galleries downtown hosting open houses, Getz often sings on the sidewalk for people awaiting shuttle buses.

A few tips at a time, a few CD sales at a time, that adds up to a full-time living. Getz may be far from rich, but — after a series of careers that included selling insurance, assisting a veterinarian and taking customer calls at the Long Beach Press-Telegram — she’s realized her dream of devoting her life to music.

“She always was out there finding new shows and never relied on the old standby places where she played,” said Mark Wood, who met Getz in the early 1980s and includes her on his client roster at Mark Wood Entertainment, an Irvine-based talent agency. “She always had good marketing sense.”

Business savvy was something that came over the years for Getz, who played her first gigs in 1982 at the Blue Beet in Newport and Bilbo Baggins, a now-defunct Costa Mesa club. At one point, she bought a used motor home and planned to set up gigs across the country, but put the plan on hold when she got a job as a switchboard operator. She suffered stage fright early on, she said, and pushed herself to overcome it at one open-mic night after another.

By the 1990s, Getz had acquired a fervent following — and not just among casual fans. Mike Boehm, the Los Angeles Times’ then-pop music critic, championed her work and placed her 1997 debut album “Apollo” and song “Inhale” on his list of the best local music of the decade. When KOCE-TV started “Sound Affects,” a weekly series that profiled modern musicians, in 2002, Getz made the first season’s lineup.

Still, getting label work came hard for Getz. In the early 1990s, she spent more than three years recording with a small-time record producer, but the project was never completed. Getz said she began recording an album for a fledgling label nine years ago, but the sessions went poorly, Getz fell out with her producer, and the label dissolved before the tracks could be completed.

Getz hasn’t completely ruled out working with a label again, but for the moment, she’s getting by calling the shots. She oversees World In Motion Records on her own, recording out of a friend’s home studio and distributing her songs online. For a while, she also had distribution on Awarestore, a site that sold CDs by independent artists, but the company folded at the end of last year.

With summer finished, Getz has spent the last few months lining up shows for the fall and winter — a lean time of the year, with the weather colder and outdoor gigs harder to find. The economy has made it tougher at times, she said, as some venues have cut back on their budget for performers. Some of Getz’s favorite haunts have invited her back; others she’s just contacted for the first time. Either way, she’s in a position she knows well: singing to strangers, trying to get their attention and hopefully making a sale or two.

“I think you learn no matter what you’re doing,” Getz said. “It’s just whether you want to take advantage of the opportunity to learn or not. I try to improve on my performing and my playing, my singing, the way I interact with the audience all the time.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.