American Songwriter » Vernell Hackett

Alan Jackson Follows Dream To Nashville

Vernell Hackett — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:37:15 +0000

This article originally appeared in the May/June 1992 issue of American Songwriter. Despite the fact that he's written some of the biggest hits in country music in recent months - "Don't Rock The Jukebox" with Roger Murrah and Keith Stegall; "Someday" with Jim McBride; and "Better Class of Losers," recorded by and written with Randy Travis - Alan Jackson maintains the same demeanor about his writing that he projects onstage...a demeanor that implies that he isn't sure just how it is that he is able to write these hit songs that keep flowing from his pen onto paper. It's that "aw shucks" and boy-next-door style that has endeared Jackson to the many fans who have started listening to him since his first hit, "Here In The Real World" (which he also wrote, this one with Mark Irwin). In fact, Jackson's name is on all the songs on his first album, and on all but one of his second recording. Jackson isn't one of those songwriters who knew from the beginning that he would be a writer. Early on, he never paid much attention to the names listed as writers on the records he bought. He was more interested in the singing aspect of the business, and it wasn't until a musician who played in a rock band around Atlanta advised him that if he intended to come to Nashville, he'd better have some original material, that Jackson even considered sitting down to write a song. The fact of the matter was, Jackson really hadn't considered that a career in music was possible; he felt it more of a dream until one day, a friend who grew up in the little town of Newnan, Georgia with him followed his dream and became an airline pilot. That set Jackson to thinking that maybe dreams can come true, and put him on a course that eventually would lead him to Nashville. The dream became reality for his friend right out of high school, but it was a few years later before Jackson would pursue his own dream. It just happened that about the same time he was thinking that he should do this, his wife Denise changed jobs and he found himself alone one summer while she worked out of Charlotte, N.C. Since there wasn't much else to do after he got home from work, he started to write songs. "I don't know, I didn't really study anybody's songs, but I had heard and sang enough to know the basic structure of a song, so I just sat down and started writing," Jackson said of his first venture into songwriting. He quickly admitted, however, that none of those songs made it onto either of his albums; in fact, he would just as soon not show them to anyone in Nashville. "Some of them were fair, I guess, but I wouldn't want to play them for anyone now," he said with a laugh. Once in Nashville, Jackson went to work at The Nashville Network in the mailroom, continuing to write because now that he was actually in town, he quickly found that not only was it not going to be an easy task to make music his career, he still had to write songs because it was hard for a newcomer such as himself to get songs pitched to him. Ironically, it was his wife who made the initial contact with a publishing company which brought him his first salaried job as a songwriter. Going though an airport one day, Denice saw Glen Campbell, and because of Alan she went up to him, introduced herself, and said she and her husband were getting ready to move to Nashville and did he have any advice to offer? Campbell gave her a business card from his publishing company, and Jackson made contact with personnel at the company as soon as he could after moving to Nashville. Though they didn't hear a hit song right away, they encouraged the young man to keep in touch, and a year later the publishing company signed Jackson to a publishing agreement. He was still without a recording contract, however, and with his songs improving, Jackson was hesitant to let any of them go to other artists, and the publishing company was very patient about that. However, "Here In The Real World" did get pitched, and cut, by a new artist on Warner Brothers Records. Something happened, the song was never released, and Jackson got it back, just in time to record it on a session for his new label, Arista Records. "I still don't pitch many of my songs," Jackson said. "I might pitch something every now and then, if there's something in the catalog that I just don't think would be something I would cut." Of course Jackson has had a cut by another artist, namely Randy Travis, with whom he wrote when the two were touring together last year. "I was touring with Randy and he wanted to write, so we just did it," Jackson recalled how the two of them started writing together. Now that their schedules are so totally different, and the two no longer travel together, "it's really hard to get together to write now." Nevertheless, the collaboration yielded the aforementioned "Better Class Of Losers" as well as "Allergic To The Blues," "I'd Surrender All" and "Forever Together," all on Travis' latest album. Jackson managed to snag one for himself, "From A Distance," which is on his "Don't Rock The Jukebox" album, and he has been quoted as saying he'd like to have a little better timing on the duo's next writing sessions. "It was close to time for Randy to record, so he got first choice on the songs we wrote," explained Jackson. "Maybe next time it'll be the other way around." Jackson said he likes to co-write, but he also likes to write by himself. One thing co-writing taught him, he emphasized, is that you don't always take the first line that comes along. "I'm real impatient, and co-writing helped me learn not to take that first line, to always strive to write one a little better, one phrased a little differently," Jackson said. "I learned you have to work at getting the line just right so they all will flow into each other throughout the song." One of the hardest things about writing along, Jackson admits, is the discipline of sitting down and actually writing. He writes about real things, and said those songs which come from heart are the songs that come across better when they are recorded and an audience finally gets to hear them. "When I write, I just sit down and write for myself, something I might like with no one in particular in mind," Jackson said his writing sessions. "I try to write things that sound good for what I enjoy singing." While Jackson said he gets ides from everywhere, he said a song is usually not worth pursuing if you can't get the hook right away, or if you can't come up with any really good lines. However, there are always exceptions to the rule. "Jim McBride and I were writing and we had this idea, "Short Sweet Ride," that we were kicking around. He played me a piece of melody and a couple of lines. It sounded like a part of a chorus but without a hook. Within a couple of sessions we had written three verses and the chorus, but we still lacked what I consider the most important line, the hook. Then we spent one whole day looking for that line which came to be "It's a short sweet ride on a runaway train." When asked how he knows when to stop writing on a song, Jackson said he takes a song and lives with it a couple days, then goes back to listen to it and see if it flows and makes sense. If it does, he considers it finished. If not, he goes back to work to make it into a better song. Because he is so busy, Jackson finds time to write more on the road than he does when he's home, due in part to the fact that he wants to spend time with his 20-month old daughter, Mattie Denise. "I like to spend time with my family when I'm off the road, so it's really hard to write then," Jackson said. "there is more time on the road, but you still have to make yourself write, you still have to have that discipline, to sit down and write a song. " Citing Merle Haggard, Bob McDill, Hank Williams Sr. and Max D. Barnes among his favorite writers, Jackson said he would like to get cuts by Jones of Haggard. "Actually, I have a couple songs that I should send to them," he conceded. Jackson's advice to new writers is simple: "Write what you believe in," he advised. "Some of my number one songs were songs that other people didn't believe in. It (success) will come if you are where you are supposed to be."

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NEIL DIAMOND: Collaboration Works on “Moon”

Vernell Hackett — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:25:39 +0000

This article was originally published in the May/June 1996 issue of American Songwriter. It's not often that a songwriter gets to write with the person who influenced his being in the music business, but such was the case for several of the songwriters who wrote with Neil Diamond for his latest album, Tennessee Moon. Aside from that, the most often made comment on all sides was how comfortable it was when the people go together to write. "Neil Diamond and James Taylor were the two biggest influences on my music early on," acknowledges Stewart Harris, who is the co-writer on "Open Wide These Prison Doors." He met Neil at a luncheon in Nashville, and as soon as the formalities of the event were over, he went to Neil and said, "I want to get booked with you right away to write...I think it was three weeks from that time (that they wrote). I had some ideas floating around in my head. I didn't want to go in there dry because opportunities like that don't come along every day. I went out to his house...we were just sitting around his kitchen table and it was so comfortable." The two go together again to "dust the lyrics," as Harris puts it. "Even in the studio we looked at the lyrics again before he did the final version. Neil will go back again and again and again until he's certain it's right. As a writer I'm not one for re-writing a lot, but we had a couple of optional lines and we looked at them and were real tickled with the end product." Bob DiPiero and Neil were together in several social situations before they actually sat down to write. "The first day we wrote he came downstairs with this beautiful old classical nylon string guitar, and he said, ‘Why don't you write on it?' After we wrote "Gold Don't Rust" he said ‘I've had that guitar since 1964 and you just wrote a great song on it, why don't you just keep it.' That night I brought the guitar home and showed it to Pam (Tillis, his wife), and told her about it, and we wrote "It's Lonely Out There" on that guitar." DiPiero said he psyched himself up not to be intimidated when writing with Neil. "I was intimidated as much as honored. Like a lot of people. I'm a big fan of many of his songs. Especially when he's sitting there, and you're hearing his voice warming up, and when he started really singing, it's pretty shocking to hear that voice coming across the table from you." DiPiero says the fact that the two didn't really know each other before they sat down to write didn't bother him. "Personally, for me it's not so hard to write with someone that I don't really know. If we both want to do it, it's like a kindred spirit," he explains. "There's always the initial part of kibitzing and shooting the breeze - you're always dancing around the actual mechanics of writing the songs, but somehow you just kind of fall into it. It really helps if the person you are writing with is a nice guy. "I wasn't really sure what he was going for, and I had reservations that he was just jumping on the bandwagon. But writing with Neil Diamond was like writing with any great writer. He's as good as any of the folks I write with, and all in all it was a very natural experience in a very unnatural setting." Bill LaBounty only lived a mile from the house that Neil rented while he was in Nashville, so he went over and picked the singer up one morning and they went to LaBounty's home studio where they wrote "Can Anybody Hear Me." "Writing with Neil I knew would be a learning experience," LaBounty admits. "There are those flashes when you work with a real performing songwriter like Neil - you will see a performance, you see the song being created by this artist, and it was a fun thing. "A lot of times, especially collaboratively, both writers are pensive in their thinking and there's dead air and dead space when people are trying to form their thoughts into words. There was that with Neil, but there were points when you could see him performing the song in his mind. "We started with music that we both liked. I was hesitant at first to say maybe this is the way the lyric ought to go. I really didn't understand what he was doing with the lyric until we had finished the song and he was performing it. He truly is a performing songwriter. From the beginning he was someone I respected, but by the end of it I really became a Neil Diamond fan." Dennis Morgan landed the title cut on the album. He says he had the chorus of the song written the day before their scheduled writing session because he had been thinking about why Neil was in Nashville and about the overall concept of the project. Once they got together, they wrote the song in less than an hour. Neil says the song was very much autobiographical. "The first verse lays it out pretty clearly that I wasn't finding stimulation or the incentive to write in Los Angeles that I had had at one time." "The text of the verse was more his story," Morgan says. "It was a beautiful combination - what a great guy to work with. I know that he's a true songwriter, and true songwriters never quit learning. They're antenna is always up. If you're gonna do it, you've go to keep expanding, and if you get in a slump, others will help you get out of it. I think he was ready to respond to a group of songwriters like he met in Nashville, and he rose to the occasion. I think we all did too; it was a mutual thing." Tom Shapiro says he had the melody for "Marry Me," and Neil says it was an idea he'd had for 15 years but couldn't find the right melody and the right setting for it. "Neil and I got together before we actually sat down to write to just get to know each other. But when I went over for the first writing session I was too nervous to write because he was such a hero of mine. So we just talked about the album and what he was doing, about his life, and then a month later we got together again to write. I'm used to writing with someone I don't know, but in this case he was bigger than life, and I just wasn't prepared. Once we started writing, it was natural - very give and take, very much like any other writing processes. I enjoyed writing with him. He was great to write with - he's a great writer." Though an acknowledged great writer, Neil doesn't take his talent for granted. "First of all, writing is the hardest thing that I do - a lot harder than concerts, a lot harder than recording - and so it's not something that I can take on half-heartedly. You have to throw yourself into it fully," Neil says. Because his last couple of albums didn't require any new songs from him, he says it gave him time to relax and pull back from writing for awhile. "I was able to enter into this project with the enthusiasm for the writing process again. And the fact that I was writing with so many new and talented people kept me on my toes. I think the chemistry of it all worked well." Neil admits that the way he wrote in Nashville, with scheduled writing sessions planned weeks in advance, was a bit different for him. But, he says, "I've written songs everywhere, from the back of limos to hotel rooms and buses and planes. I've written some of my biggest songs knowing that I had to have the lyrics finished when I landed. I started one flight with nothing and landed with "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" - and it's not that long a flight from New York to Memphis, so you have to write pretty quick! "I think one of the reasons this worked out so well was that these writers and I were somehow able to cast aside any fear, which is the first thing you have to cast aside when you're beginning to write and create something, (that) fear of it not being any good. They had enough confidence, and I had enough confidence, to go with our instincts and pretty much in each case there was the beginning idea and eventually a song written between the combination co-writer and myself. Part of that had to do with experience. They were all very experienced writers, with the exception of my son Jesse, which was an interesting experience in itself, and maybe someday I'll write a book about it! "But the methods don't change. There is no method. Any way you can do it, that's how you do it. This way worked this time, and thank God it did because we had no idea whether it would and whether we'd come up with anything worthwhile at all." This was the first time Neil had written with Jesse, and he says any problems the two might have had were "attributable to his newness as a writer and the fact that he had to learn very quickly in writing with me that he had to accept criticism of his work. That is one of the things a writer must do. He must learn to be very critical of his work. I think Jesse learned a little bit about that in his experience of writing with me. "His innocence and his music really inspired this song. He is innocent and pure as a youngster; he's my age when I had "Solitary Man." The combination of father and son - and then you throw in the great depth of love and affection between us - it turned out to be one of the most wonderful experiences in my creative life. I don't know if I can put words to it, but there was something very spiritual about it, some kind of rite of passage, me having the opportunity to pass along my own knowledge and be open about learning from his innocence and his purity and his sensibility. It was a wonderful experience." It was also interesting for Neil to watch how other writers approached their craft. "You can pick up little things from other writers. Every writer has their own little thing, their own little idiosyncrasies. I found it interesting to write with 20 writers over a period of months to see how they approached a song. Harlan Howard came to the session with a bunch of cocktail napkins with bunches of song titles, ideas and verses written on them. "I can't say I picked up any new techniques in writing, but I am a songwriter and have been since I was 17 - I feel a special kinship with other writers - I enjoy the experience of seeing how these other people get this music out of them. It's so individual, there are no rules, you know. You do it any way you can." The reason Neil came to Nashville was the talent and the writers, plus the fact that he has always wanted to experience that city. "Now was the time. I had the year, I had no concert commitments, and I just jumped in with both feet and tried to swim as fast as I could and hope for the best. It was one of the great experiences for me as a writer and as an artist. I learned a lot from these people."

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MICKEY NEWBURY: Write Heart Songs, Not Clever Hooks

Vernell Hackett — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:12:51 +0000

This article originally appeared in the January/February 1989 issue of American Songwriter. The only thing better than hearing a great Mickey Newbury song is hearing Mickey Newbury sing his great songs in a live performance. Now if that statement sounds biased, let me assure you it is, but let me also assure you I am not the only person who would ever make such a statement. Newbury is a writer of classic material - "She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye," "San Francisco Mabel Joy," "Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings," "American Trilogy," "Sweet Memories" - but he also possesses a voice that is second to none. Newbury is not a singer/songwriter in the sense that he records two albums a year of self-penned material and hits the road to perform for his fans. His most recent tour was in support of an album on the newly established Airborne label in Nashville, for which he re-recorded several of the above mentioned songs that have been recorded by other artists as well as songs he had previously recorded, including "Cortelia Clark," "Wish I Was A Willow Tree," and "Lovers." The album was recorded with violinist Marie Rhines, who accompanied Newbury on his synthesizerized guitar. It's an interesting combination - almost as interesting as talking Newbury about songwriting. "I got a call from a famous writer while I've been in town, now I'm not gonna call his name, but he called to congratulate me on the new album," Newbury starts off our conversation. "Then he asks me how the hell I'm still writing after all these years. I asked him why he doesn't write and he said he didn't have anything to write about anymore." Newbury pauses, as he must have when he heard that statement from a fellow songwriter, then continues. "I asked him if he'd ever given any thought to writing a song about not having anything to write about? Just sit down and say he has nothing to say." Newbury explains that he writes just the way he suggested to his songwriter friend - when he sits down to write, he writes what is on his mind. "The reason none of my songs have hook lines is ‘cause I don't start with any story or hook line. If I wake up and feel like writing and the sun is shining, I might start off with ‘...I woke up this morning and the sun is shining...' or ‘...I woke up this morning and it was raining...' Seldom does that wind up being the lead line, but it creates a thread that goes through the song and somewhere down the line the sounds starts. "It's an old way of writing and I really believe in it because it's the only way you can get into an unconscious flow. If you ever want to study a song and see if it's inspired, take the lines and switch them around and see if they still have content and still make sense." Newbury illustrates with "Sweet Memories" - "My world is like a river, as dark as it is deep...night after night the past slips in, and gathers all my sleep...my days are just an endless stream, of emptiness to me...filled only by the fleeting moments of the memories.' Now take those line and switch them around. " ‘My days are just an endless stream, of emptiness to me...filled only by the fleeting moments of the memories...my world is like a river, as dark as it is deep...night after night the past slips in, and gathers all my sleep'." Newbury contends that the unconscious mind is what writes lines like those, as opposed to the conscious mind, which comes up with the hook lines and clever innuendoes. "The unconscious mind, which retains 100% of its input, as opposed to the conscious mind, which retains only 15% of its input, is crazy as hell," he says. "I loved that kind of writing...'cause you never know what's gonna come out. Free flowing is the way to go (for writing a song)...but you can't take credit for it and your ego doesn't get stroked when you write like that. But it's the source of the greater art if you can tap into it and are able to tap into it when you need it, you do it when you need it and then when you don't need it, you are on another level." In trying to tell the young songwriter how to tap into this source of adrenalin, Newbury espouses the theory that you are born a songwriter, not made one. "The first thing I would tell you is that you don't learn to be a songwriter, you are a songwriter," he emphasizes. "You must place the emphasis on the need to create. Don't worry about whether it's commercial or not, because if you work long enough and really try to write what is inside of you, eventually you'll write the things that will have commercial acceptance and earn you a living. If you start to write from the conscious brain, you'll be writing formula crap that's gonna be something that might make you money for a short term, but it will destroy your creativity. Success is when you get what you want. Happiness is when you want what you get. A writer wants to be able to get inspiration (to write) and if you constantly do it without inspiration, it's gonna leave you. That's why I'm still writing after 30 years." Newbury grew up around a myriad of musical influences in Houston, Texas, including country, black, jazz, Mexican and folk. His first outlet for creativity was poetry, which he read in coffee houses in and around Houston. Soon he was putting music to those lines and performing as a singer. After a stint in the Air Force, Newbury bummed around while before hitting Nashville in the days when Kris Kristofferson and Tom T. Hall were still roaming the streets. It was the mid-60's, and these writers along with others seeking to have their songs recorded, were to change the course of songwriting in Nashville. It was still a time when songs were pitched by the songwriter who took his guitar and went to play his latest composition for the artist, but these writers were making it a time when sensitive lyrics, timely topics and haunting melodies became the accepted norm, not the exception, for a country song. Newbury thinks the cycle may have come around again to that type of song. "I've never pitched a song to an artist in my life, but if they ask me for one I'll play something for them," says Newbury, who's had cuts by Joan Baez, Andy Williams, Waylon Jennings, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Don Gibson, Eddy Arnold, the Everly Brothers and Willie Nelson. In 1966 the Nashville newcomer had four number one records on four different charts - pop, rhythm and blues, easy listening and country. "I leave it up to the publisher to pitch my songs, or I did. I don't have a publishing company right now, so I haven't pitched any songs for the past five or six years. I think the cycle is coming back around to the simpler kind of music and Ill fall right back into it. Then the people who wouldn't answer my phone calls will be calling me. I can already sense it; my phone rings more now than it did a couple years ago." "I'm sure you've heard the talk about why I haven't been having success - I'm lazy or hard to get along with, or I'm a drug addict or whatever. But if I were having that success, it would be a whole different story. I'd be artistic then...sensitive, sorrowful, a sad broken man pouring out his life blood." Newbury may sound bitter, but a better description of his attitude would be uncompromising. He believes in the way he writes and what he writes and he refuses to come back to Nashville (he lives in Oregon) and be molded into the type of writer some would have him become. For the young writer, however, Newbury stresses that it is imperative for them to live in a major songwriting center. "I lived here for 15 years," he points out. "You really do need to be where it's happening. Especially I'd say to the young songwriter go to New York City, you go to Nebraska. You have to go where there is a demand for what you are doing." Of the writers who are going to a recording center to sell what they do, Newbury sees some formula writing, but he is also encouraged by some of the songs he hears today. "Writers today are better from the craft standpoint and they're better at a younger age because their education is accelerated by their exposure to the world through television," he says. "But in the country field, they are losing an understanding of what caused the sounds. The kid today might hear a harmonica and appreciate it but not realize that it was inspired by a freight train. So it wouldn't evoke the same emotion in him that it evokes in me, ‘cause there is nothing that tears your heart out more than being stuck in a poor neighborhood watching a train fly across the Texas Plains and hearing the sound of that old steam whistle. "I think some of the stuff that Phil Collins writes just kills me...Cat Stevens, Elton John's early albums, Paul McCartney and John Lennon together. In country music, Thom Schuyler, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Jay Bolotin. Bob McDill kills me. I can't understand how he writes like he does, ‘cause to him it's a job. I'd love to get into his head and understand him ‘cause I've never been able to write like that. I go for a year and not write, and then I'll write 20 songs." In closing, I'll let one of Newbury's peers, Kris Kristofferson, tell you what he thinks of this singer/songwriter. "Mickey deliberately defies labels. He is neither country nor soul...Behind the deceptive simplicity of some of his lyrics, there are levels of mental landscape that can take you in some strange directions, past the edges of understanding...Johnny Cash has probably come the closest by calling Mickey Newbury a poet..."

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MARTIN PAGE: Page Finds Writing With Top Artists A Must

Vernell Hackett — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:52:53 +0000

Martin Page has been in love music since he was five years old. He maintains that one of his biggest thrills is to go to Tower Records and say "Give me as much music as you can for this amount of money.Martin Page has been in love music since he was five years old. He maintains that one of his biggest thrills is to go to Tower Records and say "Give me as much music as you can for this amount of money.

Though a stint in professional football sidelined his music career for several years, the English-born songwriter soon realized he was not reaching his potential in the English sport and turned to his first love to give him the satisfaction he sought.

"I primarily came from being a bass player to being a songwriter," Page revealed in an interview at his home in Los Angeles. "I came from a group that had successful records in America, so I came through the band route. I found when I was in groups that I wanted to write for my own group, and I started to fall in love with the art of songwriting. You are only as good as the song, which is the most important thing, even beyond image, which is so important in England."

Page was in the British group Q-Feel, whose dance record "Dancing In Heaven" was released in the states in 1982. In 1983, Page came to the states to visit his father, who was working with British Aerospace in South Carolina, decided he liked the U.S. and subsequently moved to Los Angeles.

By dropping names and meeting people who could get him in to see other people, Page and his writing partner, Brian Fairweather, managed to create a stir in the first six months they were in L.A. Ironically, his first major credit in Los Angeles came as producer of the Bone Symphony mini-album project that did not include one of his songs.

Songwriting success was not far away. Heart recorded "These Dreams," their first number one record, and Starship hit the top of the charts for the first time with "We Built This City." It was Bernie Taupin's first number one record with a collaborator other than Elton John.

Page's list of credits could take up the rest of the space allotted for this story: "Invisible Hands" and "You Make My Heart Beat Faster" by Kim Carnes; "Magnetic" and "Turn On (The Beat Box)" by Earth, Wind, & Fire; "Thunder In The Night" by Melissa Manchester. Plus, soundtrack work for That's Dancing, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Flying, Armed And Dangerous, Caddyshack II and Sing. He also played synthesizer and other instruments on the Grammy Winning "Ghostbusters" single with Ray Parker Jr.

One of Page's strengths, he believes, is that he knows so many of the artists in pop/rock music, and he is asked to write with many of these people.

"To survive as a successful songwriter, I think you have to be very aware that you must collaborate with some of the artists like Paul Young or Robbie Robertson," said Page, who played on sessions for many of these performers while waiting for his break as a songwriter. I find I give myself security in doing that. I think I had all those cuts because I wrote with the artist and they want to put their song on the record. So if you can become their team member, then you have found a place.

"After I've done a lot of those, I'll step back, because I've got to write a few songs totally on my own. There is a great deal of satisfaction when I do it on my own. The experience of writing with somebody helps you when you write totally alone. I love to collaborate and learn at the same time. The secret of collaborating is knowing you can give something to the other person."

One of the people with whom Page has co-written is Bernie Taupin. The two of them were introduced by publishers Bob Skoro.

"Bob came to me and said I would like you to meet Bernie Taupin, he rarely collaborates with anyone but Elton John but we'd like to see him work with you. And I thought ‘Bernie Taupin! I grew up with "Yellow Brick Road." I grew up on Elton's music, he is my idol. So we met and he had a couple of tough ones to start with. He gave me "We Built This City" and "These Dreams." We couldn't have started in a bigger place, and I think I convinced him we were doing something right."

When Page is given the lyrics and no indication of what music to put with it, he says he tends to feel the music from the nature of the lyrics.

"It's just a matter of reading it and thinking ‘What does the title make me think, are the lyrics leading me towards a mid-tempo feel or are they softer lyric or an edgier lyric?' I've tried to bring the traditional influence into pop music. Peter Gabriel is bringing more of the third world tradition into music, and we're seeing more and more of it. It's our heritage and those melodies are so special."

"I've never been in a publishing situation where I found the publisher would run my songs and I could lay back and think it was going to happen without me doing anything," Page admits. "I find it's such an advantage to me to know the producer and the artist. I can pick up the phone and say ‘I believe I've got the right song, I think you should hear it.' I got "These Dreams" to Heart because I was working with Peter Wolf in the studio and he asked for a song for Heart."

Page has had cuts that climbed the pop, jazz, dance, R&B, AOR and A/C charts. He goes back to his love for music in citing his ability to write such a diverse group of songs.

"I think a part of my success is in that I can take on different colors," he admits. "It keeps me fresh and I ten to be surprised every time because I am doing so many different styles of work. I pride myself because I'm such a great fan of music that when I get a call to work with somebody like Paul Young, I know exactly what I would be, how I produce him. I know all his records, I know where he's coming from. But I can't take what I would like for Paul into Robbie Roberston, so you become a chameleon but you bring along your own spirit. But I love shutting the door from Paul Young and going to Elton John. It keeps me thinking."

Thinking is what Page would like to see the upcoming songwriters do when they start to write a song.

"When I talk to songwriters, I say ‘why don't you try and experiment?' It's up to us, to writers, because we feed everybody. What we do is real important. The artists need great songs. What we bring to them is going to dictate how the music goes.

"Particularly in America our music is very stale. Lyrically it's very tedious. We can all stretch, musically, and artists will be doing things which kids will hear and go ‘That's great!'

"I get very upset when songwriters say ‘hey, that was a hit, I'm going to write something like that.' That's not doing what you do justice; you're not caring about what you do when you do that; you're not putting the music in a place where it could be."

That place, according to Page's way of thinking, is communication.

"Music is magic, you can't touch it," he says. "It's not physical, it's purely an emotional thing. It's soulful, it's spiritual, it's in the air. Every other art form is a physical art form. You can put music on paper, but if it's not played for the right person or it's not written properly, it's not the same magic. It's the only art form that we don't have a hold of, which to me is magic... pure communication."

The post MARTIN PAGE: Page Finds Writing With Top Artists A Must appeared first on American Songwriter.

CLINT BLACK: A Constant Songwriter

Vernell Hackett — Sat, 01 May 2004 22:26:56 +0000

For Clint Black, it's a whole new ballgame. He's signed with a new label, Equity Records; a new album, Spend My Time, has just been released; and he's found new freedom in the fact that there were no restraints on the recording of his first studio album in five years. The one thing that hasn't changed with Black is the time, effort and quality he puts into his songwriting. As he puts into his songwriting. As he puts it, "This is the first time in my life I've completed an album that faced no externally imposed deadlines, so there was a long gestation and a lot of labor. I feel like I've given birth!" Five years is a long time for a singer/songwriter to be writing but not recording, so obviously Black had a lot of songs to consider when it was time to go in and record. "I had about 35 songs I wanted to put on the album, then I narrowed it down to 20, and from there I just had to start thinking about the song keys, tempos, and themes. I finally eliminated another eight from the running, which ended up getting it down to 13. Then it was just a matter of the 13th song I wrote by myself so I decided to save it for another time." The new album has a combination of co-writes and Black-only songs, but one familiar that continues to crop up as a co-writer is Hayden Nicholas. Black met Nicholas just before his career took off, in January 1987. "Hayden had an eight track recorder in his garage and I needed to do a demo," Black recalls. "The first song we did was "Nobody's Home" so I took it and got a manager. Right about that time Hayden started playing gigs with me and he's been with me ever since." Black said the two work so well together as co-writers because of the long-time association. "Together we're a brain trust for all the songs I've written and recorded, so there's a shorthand here for thinking about what we don't have. I try not to repeat myself. There's a quickness there; we know what we have already, what I've recorded, so that's one thing. "And I guess when you're doing something together for so long there is a comfort level with rejecting ideas. But a lot of it has to do with friendship; being real close with somebody after so many years and (them) being somebody you like to work with. It's a combination of all those things that make it a natural." Black says he's written with a lot of people over the years, some he knew well, other he barely knew. "It's a little awkward sometimes at first; everybody has a different way of approaching writing a song, and a different bar for themselves as far as what is a great verse or line or melody. Sometimes it's just a little bit of work to get into a groove. You have to be comfortable in saying, ‘That's good, but I don't know if it's great---let's keep trying.' "I've written with some people who have different ways of approaching songwriting, and that really is challenging, which I don't mind. I enjoy a good challenge. But it takes a lot of work in the brain as you're going through it to kind of find a way of adapting to their style and getting them to adapt to my style. It's kind of pulling myself towards the barrel and them towards the barrel so we can both get over it and be on the same page and do something productive." Black's style is simple but it's worked well for him over the years. "I've always got a notebook full of ideas, some fleshed song is the way an actor approaches a scene in a movie. The idea has to be profound enough to inspire the other ideas that have to come around it. I have to decide if it's an essential idea or is it just a starting point. And I'll look at the idea in those terms---can it inspire the entire song or support something stronger." As an example, Black pointed to "Bad Goodbye," which he says was wide open for direction when he started writing. "When I started to think about it, I found the sadder meaning of a bad goodbye, and started thinking okay, if we're going to the sad part and somebody's leaving with a bad goodbye or not wanting to leave, there must be still some love there. I started thinking about what I would be feeling and then the song began writing itself and things came out that were real." One of the things Black says he does is an exercise of writing everything he can that relates to the central idea of the song. "Somehow when you get out there on the outside of it all, and write things down from every spectrum possible, then everything ties back together," he says. "Then I can grab the strongest things out of that and put them in some order. With fun songs it's easy to do that and approach it that way." A good example of this type of writing is "If I Had A Mind To," which Black said was literally a jigsaw puzzle in the beginning. "We had written all these machines gun lines, those little two line rhymes, without thinking of how they fit in. We decided that after we wrote them all down, we'd put them on index cards and lay them out on the table, and then start looking at them in relationship to how they best would work together. We didn't bog ourselves down in editing as we went, we just wrote them down as they came to us, sometimes laughing at some of the lines we came up with. "With an emotional song that needs to be about feelings, I tend to work more in trying to get myself to feel something. When Skip Ewing and I wrote "A Love She Can't Live Without," we tried to get to know this woman that was in that situation. We had to define her in order to relate to her. We felt sadness and the emotions of the relationship in order to tell the story of this fictional character." Black is adamant that he not repeat himself with his songs, yet he's the first to admit it's hard to keep it all new and fresh. "That's the hard part. I think it has to start with a new way of saying it. And it's got to feel like there's a spark in the room when you're writing it. There have been times when I was writing that it felt like something someone else had done and I can't stand that, I have to try something else. "If I'm writing about love, well, love isn't one thing to everybody; love isn't even just one thing to me. I have a lot of different types of live; for my wife, child, mom and dad, friend, brother, our troops, so there are a lot of different kinds of love. Just because you are writing on the same subject doesn't mean you come from the same place. When I wrote ‘love isn't something you have, it's something you do' then I got excited and knew I was saying something in a different way." There are other things in a song that might remind Black of something he's done before or a song that people might be familiar with. "If the melody is bothering then I'll change the whole style of the song. Or I'll go away from singing on the root pattern, or natural melody; I'll go above it and sing in thirds, and take the melody up to feel more natural as a harmony part. "If it's about a lyric, I think the way I'd approach it would be to think it through and try to figure out if it's really something I've heard before or is it just ringing a bell. I'd have to get away from it if it really does sound like something. If it's a real core part of what I'm trying to say it's gonna be harder to abandon. If it's a fun little line it's easier to get away from. As soon as I recognize something I try to get away from it right away." Black had some sage advice for people who aspire to write songs. "Listen to everything from the past, listen to it all. Know how the great songs have and what they said so you don't come around and say it again. At the same time, when you're writing a song, you just can't be thinking of other songs---you have to get them out of your mind and concentrate on the song you're working on. "Songwriters should look at song books and learn the different chords that people have used and different ways they used to get from one to the other and back again. It's the little colors you put in a song that will force your melody out of the box and give you a new inspiration in the song. If I'm trying to write G, C, D, it's hard to carve out fresh new melody. But I could add some color to those chords, by adding a ninth or sixth, instead of playing D play D-7 or D-11. By adding the colors it really helps to inspire a more unique sounding melody." Black also said he's glad he is not required to write every day so that he has the opportunity to accumulate more life experiences before he goes back in to create a song. "I think the tough part of being a staff writer is writing every day. I have the luxury of not having to write all the time, and I've found that if I don't try to write all the time when I come back around to do it again. I've had enough new experiences to draw on so I feel fresh and invigorated and excited about sitting down to write. If you're a staff writer, that's what you do and that's your job. Young people need to go out there and have some experiences, and then try to remember how you felt and use those moments when you write a song."

The post CLINT BLACK: A Constant Songwriter appeared first on American Songwriter.

MUSIC PUBLISHING: State of the Industry

Vernell Hackett — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 21:59:09 +0000

When we start to plan our Publishers Issue, we always try to come up with pertinent questions to pose to publishers, kind of a "state of the industry" overview to give you, the songwriters, and an idea of what has been going on in the last year. This year we feel that we got some very timely and honest answers from the publishers who took the time to talk with us. Our panel includes, Scott Francis, president, BMG Song; Rick Cua, vice president, creative, EMI CMG Music Publishing; Richard Blackstone, Head of Zomba Music Publishing; David Renzer, World Wide President, Universal Music Publishing; and Irwin Z. Robinson, chairman and CEO of the Famous Music Publishing Companies. They have more than 100 years of publishing experience among them, so up and take note -these guys do know what they are talking about! AS: How much does your company pitch to new-found outlets for music like video games and websites with your writers' music? Not websites that sell music but sites that might use music as background or for others things like sell cards, etc. Francis: BMG Songs has been very aggressive in licensing our music to new media outlets. We seek video game uses just like normal synch uses, via relationships with in-house creatives at these companies combined with consistent servicing of new and catalog music that may fit their needs. As for background music for websites, that's a bit sensitive, as most of the sites have advertisements on them, this in effect changes the use from "background" to selling a product. E-cards is an interesting case because we've found that most of these companies refuse to license -they feel that the use of the music has great promotional value and should be licensed on a gratis basis. We've aggressively stopped these companies from using our music. Blackstone: New-found outlets may well be the key to the ongoing success of publishing companies around the world. The current state of the record industry demonstrates why it does not pay to have all of your eggs in one basket. We are in the business of developing writers, artists, and copyrights, and we cannot limit our scope of development. By way of example, we hired a "video specialist" a few years back when we began to appreciate the importance of this market. This provided an additional outlet for both well-known artists as well as up-and-coming ones. By being in early, it was our intention to establish meaningful relationships with the players in an emerging market. Cua: A major part of our business is putting our songs in "all media," including games, devices and anything that uses licensed music. Our slogan is "music that goes everywhere" and we do a lot of research on trends and new opportunities world-wide. If it's out there, we will find it. In this changing publishing environment we have to dig beyond traditional opportunities in order to support our songwriters in the very best way. Renzer: As part of our film and TV and new technology we have staff who actively pitch for video games, both in New York and Los Angeles. They also pitch to other new technology. It's still an area where we have two issues -one is that the video game companies are still looking, in most cases, to do buy-out deals (work for hire) and are not offering royalties. This make that market not as attractive as is could be. I think, until the video game industry recognizes the real value of the music they are getting, it probably is not an area our songwriters are going to get really focused on. Some of our bands have viewed the video game market as a strong promotional outlet. We recently licensed part of a game that Def Jam put together with Electronic Art so we had hip hop associated with it. Then you are exposing the music to the demographics or the video game audience who will they go out and buy the artists' CDs. The ring-tone market and karaoke markets are growing. But you aren't going to say to a songwriter, "Write me a ring-tone." You're gonna say, "Write me a hit song," and once it's a hit you're gonna generate the sync revenue. We place music into all kinds of products and games, from singing fish to holiday greeting cards! Robinson: We certainly pitch to as many new outlets as we can find. We have people that are on the web all the time. We know a lot about the new games coming out because we are part of Paramount Pictures and a lot of games are tied to pictures. We try to get a royalty for each game sold; each contract is negotiated as the songwriters write for the games. Sometimes the game manufacturers show us storyboards, and the writer gets an idea from that; sometimes they want a song we already have that fits. AS: Does the economic environment have an effect on the kind of songs that are written? Does it have an impact on the type of songs that are cut? Do you encounter your writers one way or the other depending on the economic environment? Francis: The environment, economic, or otherwise, always has an effect on the kind of songs that are written. Songwriters are storytellers and, like everyone else, are affected by the circumstances and events surrounding them. And, of course, artists are also affected by the environment and want to record songs that are meaningful to them. These are creative people who write and sing from the heart, so they are affected by life events. However, we don't encourage or persuade them to write about things that do not touch them. Obviously, songwriters and artists alike were affected by 9/11, and songs on the charts reflect that. Cua: We give our songwriters encouragement and direction, not based so much on the economy, but because there are certain types of songs that more easily lend themselves to specific licensing opportunities, especially in film, TV advertising and gaming. Also, a certain artist may be looking for a specific theme. In that case we will give our writers a heads up, have them start something and hopefully get to finish it with the artists to tighten focus based on exactly what the artists had in mind. Renzer: There is a combination of factors. I think I'm always impressed with the quality of the lyrics of the songs that are coming out of our Nashville office. "Concrete Angel" is a big hit single right now, co-written by Stephanie Bently. We have the Lee Greenwood title, "God Bless the U.S.A." which is also having tremendous life. We also have a rock band, Three Doors Down. Their first video, When I'm Gone, was filmed on an aircraft carrier, and have become an anthem for soldiers in the military. Even though the song originally was not written with the military in mind, because the guys in the band are from the heart of the country, the heartland is where they feel a connection to the military and feel patriotic. Now it's almost been adopted as the theme song for a lot of military families who are missing the soldiers who are away at war. So I guess the sentiment of the country does play into it, and the economic environment can affect the songwriting business in different ways as well. It's only making things tougher for all of us. Labels are finding fewer artists, so there are fewer outlets for songs. The trend again is away from pop boy bands, if you will. Probably making it a tougher environment for the songwriter. But I think it's still about writing hits. Robinson: Not every writer turns around and writes songs based on what's happening in politics or in war but we have some writers who do and we have some writers who have had success with those kinds of songs. I think it depends on the artists. If an artist is used to making a particular kind of album and it has a theme, I don't think they are going to break that to include a serious song because of world events. If an artist is recording at the time of a tragic event or important event, they generally would look at a song if we submit it and would record it if it were good enough for them. It happens more in country music. You have so many more artists who record outside songs as oppose to the pop world where they write their own. AS: Is the trend today toward signing artists who can be taught to write songs, i.e., putting them with strong songwriters in order to write songs for their albums, or songwriters who can write for the singers looking for material. Francis: The trend is toward signing artists who are songwriters. More than ever, artists want to be involved in the songwriting process. Some for financial reasons and some want to sing songs that genuinely reflect who they are. That's a lot easier to do when they are involved in creating the songs they record. Unfortunately, not all artists are good writers or can write alone. So, naturally, you team them with co-writers who you think can bring out the best in the artist -from both a songwriter and artist perspective. And, for better of worse, the songwriting process has changed -it's become a collaborative effort tied to the production process. So, more producers are signed than ever before. When all is said and done, the number of non-artist/non-producer songwriters who are being signed to music publishing deals is decreasing. Blackstone: I do not feel that there is any specific trend either way -certainly not for Zomba Music Publishing. We are always looking for talent, whether it is a rough form and requires development, which is a role we played with both Macy Gray and Linkin Park, or whether it is developed sufficiently and ready to run in the marketplace. Additionally, it does not matter whether their art is expressed in the form of songwriting solely, or as that of an artist who writes or does not write his or her own material. AS I stated before, we are devoted to development when it is appropriate. Cua: Labels are always looking for artists who not only sing and perform but who can write great songs as well. If the artist does not write at all, or hasn't fully developed that ability, then the bar has to be higher in terms of overall talent and image. Great songs are crucial to the success of any artist and if the artist can write their own that is a huge asset to the label. Renzer: Again I think it depends on the genre and market. In Nashville we still are primarily signing songwriters. We signed two songwriter/artists, Blue Merle and Kings of Leon, where one of our Nashville writers co-wrote something like sevens songs on the album. Having great writers who can collaborate with artists is an important part of our business. In New York and Los Angeles, we are not primarily signing just songwriters. In the urban area, we are signing artists or writer/producers, or artist/writers, and some of them have turned out to be strong lyricists. In addition to having their own project they can collaborate with other artist/producers. We are signing artists with record deals. We really are in the age of the hybrid; even in Nashville the writers are developing production skills. Troy Burgess went from intern to writer in one year. Glen Ballard went from writer to writer/label owner to writer/film producer. And ultimately each talent is unique and you have to judge each talent on his or her own merits. I think with the state of our industry it's important for writers to develop those other skills, be it writer/producer, or be it writer/artist. In our company there's a healthy mix going on. Robinson: Signing an artist writer is a positive and a negative. Sometimes the artist/writer will only write for his or her own self and the success/failure depends on what happens to them. Some will write for other people and risk is spread for what they can do for them and for other people. We do sign artist/writers, but we also sign a lot of writer/producers. They wind up producing on many artist' albums, spread on many labels, and your risk is spread around quite a bit. Yes, there is some backlash with that. Very often we will sign an artist and the artist will be produced by a third party who writes with the artist but who is signed to another company, so we wind up with only half the publishing and we wind up with only a few songs on the album, but that's the risk we take. AS: Does your company sign an artist/songwriter in the hopes of getting a development deal for him or her? Francis: Absolutely. We have recently signed several artist/songwriters and are helping them develop as writers, which will in turn provide them with the best recorded songs to help them get record deals. We are involved with all aspects of their careers -writing, production, imaging, etc. -to help jumpstart them as artists and get them record deals with the right companies. Blackstone: We do not do these kinds of deals often, as we would prefer to develop them on our own and prepare them properly and sufficiently for their shot at the right kind of artist deal. Matching the artist to the proper label is the key. Being patient and waiting until the project is truly ready for showcasing is another important factor. It feels like you get one shot, for the most part, with labels and you want to maximize your ability to score when you finally get it. Cua: Many times we do sign songwriters who have the potential to get a record deal. The more possibilities we have with a writer the better. We take time developing our writers for record deals. We don't rush the process and move according to their progress, not based solely on the dates on their plan. AS: Are we any closer to settling the Internet downloading issue than we were when we discussed this question last year? Francis: Closer, yes, Close, no. Until the piracy issue is resolved to the point where its impact on CD sales is minimized, we will not be close to settling the downloading issue. Cleary, Apple has shown with iTunes Music Store that the consumer is aching for a workable download service. It's promising, but there's a long way to go yet. Blackstone: I believe that we may be. There were too many distractions in the early years. We are starting to really get a line on what this is all about which allows us to focus on the real issues and not spread our resources too thinly. Cua: Although this is still a huge issue, I believe we are closer to settling this through several initiatives that will help deter people from illegal downloading; legal, easy to use, methods of obtaining tracks. Also, spoofing, or threats of law suits, and the campaign toward general consumer awareness certainly should help. Renzer: I think this week we have some very encouraging news with the Apple service and they announced they have sold over a million songs. A lot of our clients are up on Apple Service. I think it may be sending a message that consumers want flexibility buying music, they want it without subscribing to a subscription service. And they want the ability to download it and own it whether on ipods or CD. Our songwriters will be getting paid by that service, will be getting statutory service for every single and for every song sold through that service. Robinson: This morning the four students that were sued settles -they are paying penalties. I hope that if that becomes widespread people will stop doing it. We still have to win in the courts. We are all suffering because of the downloading. It is the biggest problem that we have ever had. In most instances in the past the technology was 100 percent great for us but technology now is sort of working against us and that is unfortunate and we have to find a way to solve that problem. And there are new systems coming up every day which I think will have an effect on how much downloading is done and I hope they will become successful. While there are issues that need to be addresses, the publishers AS spoke with were generally positive and upbeat about the future for songwriters and the publishing business in general. Renzer may have summed it best when he said "I would say that publishing has shown the most resilience to the turmoil in our business. "Songwriters do have multiple revenue streams -mechanical, performance, synchronization, and other areas like sheet music, ring tone, etc. -which they can look to for compensation. I think songwriters should remain encouraged to work and hone their craft; hopefully affiliating with the right music publisher will create the right marriage and the right kind of successful career."

The post MUSIC PUBLISHING: State of the Industry appeared first on American Songwriter.

TOBY KEITH: Writing Amid Controversy

Vernell Hackett — Thu, 01 May 2003 22:07:04 +0000

Toby Keith has written the majority of his number one records, including the enormously popular "How Do You Like Me Now" and the recent controversial "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." The latter song was written a few days after the September 11th terrorist attacks in honor of his father, who was a soldier in the ‘50s. The singer says his father always flew a flag to show his patriotism. "I had lost him in a car wreck six months before the attacks took place, so I wrote my feelings down," Keith continues. "I never really intended for this to be a song. It was originally entitled ‘Angry American.' The whole point of the song is that we're still allowed to be angry."Toby Keith has written the majority of his number one records, including the enormously popular "How Do You Like Me Now" and the recent controversial "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." The latter song was written a few days after the September 11th terrorist attacks in honor of his father, who was a soldier in the ‘50s. The singer says his father always flew a flag to show his patriotism. "I had lost him in a car wreck six months before the attacks took place, so I wrote my feelings down," Keith continues. "I never really intended for this to be a song. It was originally entitled ‘Angry American.' The whole point of the song is that we're still allowed to be angry." Despite the fact that some folks felt the song too strong -the most objected line was "... ‘cause we'll put a foot up your ass, it's the American way' -Keith says, "I sang it for the U.S. troops and their endorsement was the only one I needed." Keith's self-penned hits include "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This," "Shoulda Been A Cowboy," "He Ain't Worth Missin'," "Who's That Man" and "You Ain't Much Fun (Since I Quit Drinkin')." Like his heroes before him, including Charlie Daniels, Elton John, and Merle Haggard, Keith is a singer/songwriter who feels strongly about recording his own material and he doesn't mind putting his beliefs on the line to do it. It's not do much that he doesn't think anyone else can write a great song, it's just that he thinks he can write the best great songs for himself. "When someone writes their own things, to me they release their character in their music and that character shines through in all their songs. You (the listener) flip out over that character and it shows up in the attitude and delivery. When somebody just sings a song, they can't bring that to the table. If you're not the songwriter you have to go somewhere and find your character and record it. I can't imagine making an album if you don't write it. I only found two or three things in a few years that really fit me to go on an album. I can't imagine finding 11 or 12 every time I record. I thank God I can write them, because I think my attitude, character and personality come through in my writing. If you hear me sing one of my songs on the radio, people who know me say ‘that is so you'...well it should be because I wrote it." As a youngster, Keith was part of a group that sat around on the weekends playing guitar and trading songs. "Other people would play a song and say they wrote it, and I'd watch the reactions of the other folks in the group and they always seemed impressed," Keith relays. "So I thought ‘I can do that,' so I started trying to write songs. I was a teenager at the time." As time went on, the Oklahoma-born songwriter helped put together a band and they started doing his original material. At that young age, he learned a valuable lesson about songwriting. "I didn't know how good my songs were when we started playing them out. I'd write them and we'd play them in that little circle of friends, but you didn't know how good they were gonna be on a large scale. The next step was to take it to a nightclub and you might sing eight or 10 that you thought were your best and they might not even get a reaction from the crowd." "Looking back on that time period, I can see where I would write 50 songs and I'd get one good one. Then maybe I'd write 40 songs and write a good one. Then it would only be 30 songs with a good one, and the gap just kept getting closer and closer and finally got to where anything you wrote was a pretty decent song. It took about six to eight years to get to that point." Keith says he didn't consciously become an avid fan of singer/songwriters, but when he went back and looked at the tapes he listened to in those years when he was first starting out, he was amazed. "I didn't know what it was that I liked in other people's music, I just knew who I liked. I went back and found some cassette tapes from when I was a teenager, about 100 tapes that listened to in the car. One common thread through them all, every artist, Bob Seger or Elton John of the Eagles or Haggard or whoever, the common thread was they were the singer-songwriters. I literally had two or three tapes out of 100 that were not singer/songwriters, so there was something common there that touched me and made me buy their product. Charlie Daniels, Alabama, Eddy Raven, Billy Joel -anything that was in there -it was people who had written their own songs. It was amazing to me. I didn't know what I was doing at that time, I just bought the tapes." Listening to those tapes, Keith subconsciously learned what made a good song, and it carries over into his writing today. A writing session for him starts for him starts with an idea from which he develops what calls the core of the song. "The chorus to me is the gist of the song; that's where the idea is delivered. I make sure the chorus is as good as it can be go when you take off on the verse it has to be good too. If I have an idea I start singing the idea in my head until I land on something that feels real good with it and I'll build a core around that and then I'll say okay, now I know what needs to be said to get me to here, and when I get here it's gonna be good. If I don't ever get the chorus right, it's no use in me writing the song." "If you look and ‘How Do You Like Me Now!?' you can see that if you've already got the chorus then you've got to set the song up to explain why you are saying how do you like me now. So I've got to take you back to a time when the girl wouldn't listen and she said I'd never get anywhere, and I just start working from there." When Keith co-writes he might work on a song a little differently, depending on who he is writing with and what their writing style is. "If it's a guy or girl I'm not used to working with, we'll try two or three different ways. If it's someone I can trust and have written with them before, they know you're there for the best song that can be written." The two guys Keith has written with the most are Scotty Emerick and Chuck Cannon. When asked what made Scotty and Chuck good co-writers, Keith was quick to answer, "Scotty is so fresh and he's a very persistent songwriter. He'll come out on the road and stay two or three days and every five seconds on down time he picks a guitar up and starts doing melodies and things and he brings fresh melodies that make you want to write. "Chuck's just a pro -he's written so many great songs, you'll never go wrong with him. At one point we had written, I think, nine songs and six of them had been singles. One had been an album cut and one was Shane Minor's single, another one his wife put on her Lyric Street album." Keith said that when tow good writers work together they won't accept mediocrity in their work. "When we're writing we fight each other for words. Chuck writes ever day; I don't. He keeps really in tune. I like to sit back and absorb life and when it comes time to write it all comes up, so that keeps me with fresh ideas that fit me really well. The toughest part of writing a song is the great idea. It's not a matter anymore of hoping to write it -once you've has success and have had hits. Especially if you're an artist, you know what the public expects, so you stay somewhere around your groove, and you know when you hear the great idea that you're gonna nail it." And great ideas eat away at you, according to Keith. "When I get on an idea that is a great idea, it wouldn't matter what I was doing, it would eat at me. I would spend every minute looking for places to work on that song. I'd be driving in my car with the radio off with the melody in my head." And where do those great ideas come from? "I really don't know where they come from," Keith replies. "The person who said it best to me Mac MacAnally. I asked him about where he got the idea for this song of his I like and he said, ‘I just happened to be the only one up when it came by.' I think that's right. So many other songwriters tell you the same thing. You hear a song and wish you'd written it; song titles are so obvious and ideas are so obvious but you just don't see them." Keith doesn't hesitate when asked for advice about songwriting. "The best advice I can give writers is what worked for me, and that is to finish every songs you start, just for the practice. Finishing a song is just as important as having a great idea. If you start 100 songs and finish one of two, you never learn to finish a song out. Even if it's a bad song it's important to finish the song all the way because that gives you practice in closing one out. That way when you do have a good song, you will know how to close it out."

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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Still Writing and Singing for the Common Man

Vernell Hackett — Sat, 01 Mar 2003 21:54:55 +0000

Bruce Springsteen and Merle Haggard have much in common as songwriters. Though writing in two different musical genres, both speak to and for the common man - those people who get up every day, go out and do their job, then come home to spend time with their husband, wife, children, girlfriend, boyfriend and other loved ones.Bruce Springsteen and Merle Haggard have much in common as songwriters. Though writing in two different musical genres, both speak to and for the common man - those people who get up every day, go out and do their job, then come home to spend time with their husband, wife, children, girlfriend, boyfriend and other loved ones. The people who appreciate the songs written by these two men are the backbone of America - the working men and women - for they not only see their friends and neighbors in the songs, but they see themselves and in so doing can directly identify with what the men are writing about. "I've always felt I write well about these things," Springsteen agrees. "Those elements are where the blood and the grit of real life mix with people's spiritual aspirations and their search for just, decent lives." In his latest album, The Rising, Springsteen speaks directly to this group of people in its songs, many of which he wrote after the 9/11 tragedy. While he wrote about the heroes who died because of that attack, he also wrote about the survivors of that day and how they now deal with a whole different set of problems than the ones they had before the tragic even happened. And in the end he offeres hope for those who survived to go forward with their lives and be the best that they can be despite the new set of circumstances they must deal with. Springsteen says that he did not set out to write an album about 9/11, yet the events of the day and those that followed weighed heavily on his mind as he began to write for the album that would become The Rising. As with any good songwriter, Springsteen writes songs about what is heavy in his thoughts at the time. The New Jersey-born singer/songwriter was invited to be a part of the Sept. 21, 2001 telethon for the Sept. 11 Fund, and planned to sing a song he had started writing immediately after the attacks, "Into The Fire." Because he didn't feel the song was complete enough to sing in public, he chose instead to sing an older song, "My City of Ruins." "I had had ‘My City Of Ruins' for a couple of years," Springsteen explains. "I was going to play it in Asbury Park (N.J.) for a Christmas show. Asbury has been struggling for a very long time, and the town's now on the verge of being redeveloped, so there was a moment when there was a lot of hope and excitement about it. When I played it on the 9/11 telethon people made a connection with that event, but it was written quite a bit before. It felt appropriate to sing it that night, but it was not written about 9/11. "It's a gospel song. It's like a lot of my things, like ‘The Promised Land,' or I had a song on the live album called ‘Land Of Hope and Dreams'...They're all fundamentally gospel-rooted, or blues and gospel-rooted. It seemed like that element was going to be a significant element of the record in some fashion." Soon after completing "Into The Fire," Springsteen penned "You're Missing" and "The Fuse." Springsteen calls "Into The Fire" and "You're Missing" genesis songs because, he explains, they triggered ideas for other songs that he wrote for the album. "I'd come up with one and that would lead to another and then that one would lead to another," Springsteen says. "After that happens a few times you see that you have enough emotional elements to make the song thoughtful and complete, and the songs come together to tell a story. And finally the story begins saying ‘I'd like this emotional ground covered or that emotional ground covered.' We finished the album in about five months. "The songwriting itself was not time-consuming. The songs formed themselves pretty quickly and I had a process where I'd demo them pretty fast because I have a studio set up at home and it enabled me to see if it was a good song. That really helped me weed through a lot of different ideas I had. But the songs were written quickly." Springsteen calls that type of writing soul-mining. "You're mining, but not always around the rich veins," he explains. "Sometimes a lot of time goes by before you hit on one that works." Springsteen has mined much gold in his career. The journey from paying dues in bar bands to becoming known as "The Boss" was a long haul for him, but he has made it with flying colors. His songwriting has been a major part of that journey and part of the reason for that is his ability to convey emotions in his songs. For instance, in writing the songs for The Rising, Springsteen researched before he wrote. The story goes that he actually called widows of two of the men killed in the attacks to learn more about their husbands and their loss. "When you're putting yourself into shoes you haven't worn you have to be very thoughtful," Springsteen explains why he did so much research for this project. "You call on your craft, and you search for it, and hopefully what makes people listen is that over the years you've been serious and honest," he said. "This album is the opposite end of the lyrical spectrum (from songs like those on his Tom Joad project). There's detail, but it was a different type of writing than I've done in a while. It was just sort of pop songwriting or rock songwriting. I was trying to find a way to tell the story in that context. One of the things I learned on some of my earlier records where I tried to record the band, for instance, on Nebraska, when the band played those songs they immediately overruled the lyrics. It didn't work. Those two forms didn't fit. The band comes in and generally makes noise, and the lyrics want silence. They make arrangement, and the lyrics want less arrangement. The lyrics want to be at the center and there is a minimal amount of music. The music is very necessary but it wants to be minimal, and so with The Rising I was trying to make an exciting record with the E Street Band which I hadn't done in a long time, so that form was kind of driving me." Another thing that gave Springsteen freedom to write was his association, for the first time, with Brendan O'Brien, who produced The Rising. "I trusted his viewpoint very intensely, and I had a lot of faith in where he thought it was going to go sound-wise. "The guitars were brought way up front, the keyboards were put in a different spot; things sounded a little different. We used a variety of tape loops, and we had a lot of different sounds going on - everything to sort of not go the normal thing that we'd done in the past. The essential thing was to get the band to feel sonically fresh. He knew exactly what to do there, so I got to kind of sit back and do the singing and the playing and the songwriting." Now that the album has been written and recorded, Springsteen can look back and see how and why it is relevant to the people who were directly affected by 9/11 as well as those who were touched from a distance. "I didn't sit down to write this or that but I know music can help people discern meaning when they experience chaotic or cataclysmic events. Songwriters and storytellers in general are people who attempt to assist people in contextualizing some of that experience. Not explaining the experience, because I don't know of an explanation, but sorting through things emotionally and locating ties that people have that continue to bind even in the face of events of that day. I think I went in search of those things on many of the songs and found myself moving toward religious imagery to explain some of the day's experiences. It's unavoidable to some degree because of the nature and the type of sacrifice that occurred." "What happened on that day was a very natural thing to write about, and there were a lot of obviously inspirational things happening at the time. You're trying to weave that experience into words for yourself. I think that's where it starts. It starts with you trying to do it for yourself, and then in the process - because I learned the language of songwriting and music - trying to communicate it to other people. "I'm just doing something that's useful for me, and then, I hope, in some fashion it's gonna be useful to my audience and will provide some service to them."

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MARILYN BERGMAN: ‘Drifted’ Into Songwriting

Vernell Hackett — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 21:44:46 +0000

Marilyn Bergman's title is president and chairman of the board of ASCAP, but to many people she has touched over the years with her songs, she will always have the title of songwriter. She and her husband, Alan Bergman, are co-writers who took home Oscars in 1968, 1973 and 1984 for "The Windmills of Your Mind," "The Way We Were," and for the score of "Yentl." Other Oscar nominations have been for "It Might Be You" from Tootsie, "How Do You Keep The Music Playing? From Best Friends, and "What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?" from The Happy Ending.Marilyn Bergman's title is president and chairman of the board of ASCAP, but to many people she has touched over the years with her songs, she will always have the title of songwriter. She and her husband, Alan Bergman, are co-writers who took home Oscars in 1968, 1973 and 1984 for "The Windmills of Your Mind," "The Way We Were," and for the score of "Yentl." Other Oscar nominations have been for "It Might Be You" from Tootsie, "How Do You Keep The Music Playing? From Best Friends, and "What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?" from The Happy Ending. "The Windmills of Your Mind" and "The Way We Were" also received Golden Globe awards and "The Way We Were" earned two Grammys. The couple has four Emmys for "Sybil," "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom," "Ordinary Miracles" and "A Ticket to Dream." Marilyn and Alan also collaborate with Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, Dave Grusin, Henry Mancini, André Previn, Johnny Mandel, John Williams, Quincy Jones and James Newton Howard. In 1996 they were nominated for a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award and a Grammy Award for their song "Moonlight," performed by Sting for the Sydney Pollack film "Sabrina." In 1998 they wrote the title track for Tony Bennett's album The Playground with music by the late Bill Evans. For the Val Kilmer/Mira Sorvino film At First Sight they wrote the love theme "Love is Where You Are" with music by Mark Isham. In 2001, Alan and Marilyn were commissioned by The Kennedy Center to write a Jazz Song Cycle, which they wrote in collaboration with Cy Coleman. Portraits in Jazz: A Gallery of Songs was performed at the Kennedy Center on May 17, 2002. Marilyn was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980 and was a recipient of the Crystal Award from Women in Film in 1986. In 1995 she received a National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award and an honorary doctorate degree from the Berklee College of Music. In 1996 Marilyn received the first Fiorello Lifetime Achievement Award from New York's LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. In June of 1997, she received the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award. Trinity College presented Marilyn with an Honorary Doctorate in 1998. In 2002 she was awarded the Creative Arts Award from the Kaufman Cultural Center and, with Alan, the National Music Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1994, she and Alan scripted the Barbra Streisand Concert Tour and HBO special for which they were nominated for a Cable Ace Award. They also received a Cable Ace Award and an Emmy Award for their original song "Ordinary Miracles" from the HBO special "Barbra Streisand: The Concert." Together they wrote, and Marilyn co-executive produced, the acclaimed "One Voice" concert starring Barbra Streisand and executive produced a PBS Special, "The Music Makers: An ASCAP Celebration of American Music at Wolf Trap." Marilyn has appeared on numerous talk shows and panels and hosted a PBS special, "Women in Song." Marilyn was originally a musician who went to New York City's High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia School of Music and Art). She says she drifted into songwriting by accident, though she had already made up her mind that she didn't have the discipline or talent it took to be a concert pianist. "I was an English and philosophy major (at New York University) but never knew what I wanted to do really," she admits. "I know the wonderful lyric writer, Bob Russell, who wrote lyrics to those great (Duke) Ellington songs like "Don't Get Around Much Anymore.' When I came to California he and his wife, Anna, were the only two people I knew out here. I drifted into songwriting really by accident because I had a fall and broke my shoulder and couldn't play piano so I started writing lyrics. The first song I wrote was published and I got an advance and I thought ‘This is easy.' And then it was a long time before I got another one cut." Marilyn and Alan came so close to crossing paths numerous times because they were both writing with Lew Spence, but for some reason they never met until Spence decided they needed to all write together. "We wrote ‘Nice And Easy,' and continued writing together for a couple years and then Alan and I got married. We had so much time on our hands because we were together all the time that we started writing with a lot of different composers. Alan used to write music and lyrics, but as he says, we felt that his lyrics were better than his music, so when it became possible to write with all the great composers we write with, it was wonderful. The fact that we are both musicians enables us to be good sounding boards for composers and good collaborators, in the sense of understanding the category and being helpful." Most of Marilyn's songs are for specific projects, so her approach to writing a song is a bit different from someone who is writing for an upcoming recording project, or a songwriter who is pitching to artists. "It's not my usual mode of working to just have an idea and write a song," Marilyn explains. "If we are inspired to write a song we usually do it when we hear a melody we love and we know we want to write it. We are inspired by a movie, a play or a piece of music. Or by an artist calling and saying would you write a song for me, I'm doing an album of such and such kind of songs." Marilyn says she writes every day, comparing a songwriter to an athlete who must work out and keep in shape. "I do my ASCAP work in the morning - luckily I live in California, so by 3 or 3:30 p.m. I can put my songwriter hat on. We write nights and weekends, and when we are on a deadline there are always e-mails and other things that can wait until the end of the day. But I'm available for ASCAP from 6 a.m. until 3:30 p.m." When writing for a movie or television show, Marilyn says she has to see the program or read the script to know exactly how the song will fit in the scene. "You have to weave your way through it as if you were there from the beginning. We would start usually by seeing the movie if it's been shot and having a conversation with the director to discuss the function of the song. Does it underline a mood or some other level than what the screen is showing? Unless you are going to add something why is the song there?" "And we'll talk about the function and from whose point of view is the song -a character in the movie or a pristine observer? And what do they want the song to do? Usually a director can articulate that very well. The more savvy a director is about music and songs, the better. And there are some who are very sophisticated and know what they want and don't want when they hear it." Once the song is done they go back to the director with it and it is up to that person to decide whether it will work or not. If they don't like it, it's back to the drawing board for the writers. "Things are not written, I believe, they are re-written," Maryiln points out. "That is the difference between an amateur and professional songwriter - the ability to rewrite. Not to have fallen so in love with what you have written that you can't find a better way. I'm always weary of someone who says this is the only way, the way it has to be." Her influences come from what is referred to as the golden age of songwriters and include Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, the Gershwins, Dorothy Fields, Hoagy Carmichael, Yip Harburg, as well as latter-day masters such as Stephen Sondheim. "I think there is an originality about all of them, she says as she explains the popularity of these writers' lyrics over the years. "I don't know how many thousands of love songs there are in the world, but when you think of ‘I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face,' what an original way to write a love song. They found original ways to say things that are universal, describe feelings which are universal in origin and new ways to say these things with great craft." Craft is not a bad word to Marilyn. "It's not a word that is as popular today as it used to be because people think a song is contrived if it is crafted - maybe not accessible and not the way people talk. I still think a perfect rhyme is more satisfying to one's ear than an imperfect one. I think ‘mind' and ‘find' sound better than ‘mind' and ‘time.' I know that's old fashioned but it works. "I think that's one of the challenges and part of the fun of writing lyrics, to keep digging until you can make it as pure as it can be, as crafted as it can be. Sometimes the word which is exactly the word you mean doesn't sing quite right and you have to go back figure it out and figuring out is fun." In offering advice to songwriters, Marilyn said "I can only go back to my experience as a young writer, and even now I will go back and listen to the great songs that we talked about before. I don't think you can really know where you are going unless you know where you are coming from. How do you know what you're writing hasn't been written before, and better, if you don't listen to the masters? I think there are lessons to be learned from things that endure. "And also you have to listen to the writers today who are saying important things about the world you live in. That's the contribution of the rap writers; I think they are making a big contribution, the entire controversy aside. I think reading is important. Reading stimulates language. Read everything - poetry, novels, plays. And be open. Again I go back to not thinking there is only one way to do everything."

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JUDY COLLINS: Late Bloomer as Songwriter

Vernell Hackett — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 21:40:04 +0000

It's hard to believe that Judy Collins has a 40-plus year career in music until you start counting up the hits - Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon," Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now," Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" and her own "Albatross," and "The Blizzard." She's even had a classic rock song, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," written for her! It's hard to believe that Judy Collins has a 40-plus year career in music until you start counting up the hits - Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon," Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now," Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" and her own "Albatross," and "The Blizzard." She's even had a classic rock song, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," written for her! Her father, Chuck Collins, was a singer, composer and broadcaster. Collins grew up in Seattle, Wash. and was only 10 when she began studying with Antonia Brico, the orchestral leader who conducted major symphony orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. In 1974 Collins wrote a documentary about her, Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman. The film, which Collins produced and co-directed with Jil Godmilow, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary, and was named one of the top 10 films of the year by Time. Although she was performing classical music, Collins was drawn to the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. She loved the traditional songs of the folk revival and learned to play guitar. It wasn't long before Collins was singing at the folk clubs in Denver, Boulder and Central City in Colorado. She then headed east, performing at the Gate of Horn in Chicago and in New York City's Greenwich Village folk clubs. A performance at the village Gate in 1961 landed her a contract with Elektra Records, the label where she stayed for 35 years. Collins filled her first three albums with traditional songs and later began recording songs that made social and political statements written by the likes of Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan. She was one of the first artists to record Roger McGuinn's "Mr. Tamborine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn." She was the first to record the songs of Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb and Joni Mitchell. Even today she still enjoys finding great songs written by other people. "I'm learning a song called ‘Drops of Jupiter,' by a group called Train, out of Atlanta," she says. "It's marvelous. I really admire a songwriter named Beth Nielsen Chapman." "I was almost 30 when I first started writing songs, so I was a latecomer to songwriting," Collins says. "There were so many great songs around to sing, I never thought of it (songwriting) as something I would be able to do. It has been a wonderful thing to write songs." Leonard Cohen encouraged her to write. "He said I should give it a try. I went off and started working on songs. ‘Since You've Asked' was my first song; it took 20 minutes to write." Collins says her writing has changed over the years, especially since she has written the novel Shameless and her most recent book, Singing Lessons. She cites "The Blizzard," a story about being stranded in a Colorado snow storm, and "Walls," about the Korean Memorial Wall that her husband designed, as two examples of how her writing has changed. "This type of writing is kind of what I was writing when I wrote ‘Albatross,' a song that is very personal for me," she says. "I think those songs are very much a particular stamp that I have made on songwriting. I suppose they are a bit like movies or theatre, they have stories in them. Most of them, like ‘Chay' and ‘Houses,' sometimes come out of dreams. ‘Fallow Way' started as a poem." Collins said she is pretty disciplined but that songwriting is something that really has to be faced. "If I work every day I get a lot done. But there are times you have to go into it and not come out. I try to work every day. Sometimes songs come out boom, boom, boom. And then they can take five years, ‘Chay,' took five years. I just could not finish it. ‘Rings of Angels,' which I wrote after my son's death, took me forever. They all seem to have their own timetable." The hardest thing about writing, Collins contends, is that you have to just sit down and do it. "I've written journals since my early 20s, and I think that writing is so important. Sometimes there will be a few weeks when I'm not quite as faithful to those journals as otherwise, but I have journals going back 40 years. It's a wonderful source. Someday my granddaughter and libraries will have those." Collins says she looks for ideas everywhere. "Steve Gillete sent me his book about songwriting. He said try using somebody's name in a song. So I wrote ‘Lily of the Valley,' which I think is one of my best songs ever. It's about spouse abuse. I keep notebooks in my purses, I jot down phrases. Someone will say something and you gotta get it down. Hook lines are real important. I think listening to music is very important. "You listen for inspiration, for what not to do, for the ideas of rhythm. Rhythm is an important piece of songwriting. The rhythm of the lyric will shape what you write in a totally different way. "It's important for me to write my own songs. I try to apply the same standards to writing as I apply to picking songs. So I have to make sure my writing is right up there, which is tough." Collins latest venture is owning her own record company, Wildflower Records, which she started about two years ago. Her first projects were re-releasing her first two albums as one project and recording a live album at Wolftrap in Vienna, Va. as the label's second project. She points to the late Teresa Sterne of Nonesuch records as one of her heroes when it comes to innovation and creativity at record labels. "Tracey was the only woman who ran her own record company, and she had a terrible time of it," Collins says. "She was so smart, so detailed, such a perfectionist, but it was a man's world and she was treated horribly. Still, she made all those great records - records that will last. She's a great role model for me - a pioneer. I hope that her example will allow me to float my new label into longevity."

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