Years ago, when my wife, Wendy Curl, was just getting started in the music business, she received some advice about how to break into the local music scene.

One day, a little three-year-old boy was brought to him. The child had severe clubfoot and was walking on the side of it. “This is his only chance,” a local doctor told him. “If you don’t operate, he’ll never walk normally—and his life will be shortened.”