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NMW Spotlight : Louvin Up Close
I thought I'd break tradition for this post and give you a little glimpse of my alter ego and the adventures of a performing songwriter. For my regular readers : don't worry, we'll be back to the...
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The Vital Vision
We can't sell a product people don't need. A song has to either move the audience, make them laugh or cry, or it has to become the soundtrack for their lives-- meaning it must be a song they fall in...
View Article10,000 Hours
Hallelujah, I'm not alone.I saw Malcomb Gladwell on TV last night and wrote his book title down before I went to bed ("Outliers"). One of the many points this welcomed book makes is that it takes about...
View ArticleGot Real?
"I always wanted to be a musician," the woman wearing the retail apron in the TV commercial says. She's referring to Rock Band, or Guitar hero, or some other video game that her family has discovered....
View ArticleLooking Back, Looking Forward
It's time once again to take stock of my year and set goals for a new one. I'm exhausted just typing that sentence. Many of you probably do the same thing on New Year's Eve. We torture ourselves...
View ArticleNetworking
After 25 years in and around Nashville (I lived there for 23 of those years) I can share some of my experience with you. One thing is true: the music industry is a network that is made up of smaller...
View ArticleRhyming Your Way Through It
I’ve learned something from almost every collaborator I’ve worked with. Sometimes I learned what not to do. But more often I learned something like this: the essence of a great lyric lies in the...
View ArticleThe Radio's Echo
If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money. - Andrei TarkovskyNo one can write...
View ArticleDeep Creativity
We multi-task our days away in a whirlwind of keyboard activity, and we’re even programmed to enjoy our interruptions-- that’s what the researchers have discovered.Interruptions increase adrenaline and...
View ArticlePolarity Of Mind
I’ve just returned from a ten day road trip that included a few days in Nashville.I might blog about the trip next time, but for now I’m following up on my last post, Deep Creativity.I came upon a...
View ArticleLittle Miracles
A great song is essentially an inspired idea.There’s a loaded word: “inspiration”.Who would dare use it inside the profane halls of Music Row these days?The music industry has found the commodity of...
View ArticleSong, Come Free Me
Music is life.Music is sustenance, oxygen, bread, water, faith and nurture.We all know how it feels to starve on the fat of some success or to thirst in the fountain of a few good times.Success and...
View ArticleIt's All (Almost) In A Name
I'm a sucker for a compelling song title; "Moon River", "Peel Me A Grape", "Jesus, The Missing Years", "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine", "Into The Mystic"-- these titles and countless more just...
View ArticleA Song For Father's Day
Sorry for the lack of postings recently, I've been very busy promoting the new CD and on the road a lot this spring. Here's a little tune I wrote with Jack Sundrud and Helen Darling that's appropriate...
View ArticleMerciful Measures
As I muster some strength for the first time in almost a week (my nemesis, severe bronchitis again) and try to repair the damage done, I find myself thinking about my friends and family, and where I’d...
View ArticleAll The Spells
The instinct is a mystery. We can't justify it, can't explain it, or defend it. We just feel it. A song pulls us into itself before we have time to over-analyze what we’re doing. It’s the mysticism of...
View ArticleThe Real Game
I was nine years old sitting in the first base bleachers at ramshackle old Connie Mack Stadium when the Cardinals visited in the summer of 63. Stan the Man was a few months short of retirement, but the...
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The Music Circle
Falling in love with anything is a growth process; something that requires a little pondering and engagement; something we invest ourselves in. Remember when LPs (if you are under 30, mea culpa) didn’t...
View ArticleA Blissful Surrender
Do you want to write songs, or do you need to write them?If writing great songs were only as simple as wanting to do it, we'd all have dozens of them. It requires more commitment than that. If you're...
View ArticleCountry Dignity
Where are the real people in country songs? Where have they gone? There's dignity in country people. Yes, they have trucks and muddy jeans out there, although most Music Row songwriters apparently...
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