A Songwriter's Champion - The Beginning

This morning I was sitting out on our screened in porch with my cup of coffee, journal, One Year Bible and Jesus Calling and my heart was getting fuller and fuller with thanksgiving to God for the opportunity of living another day doing what I love to do. One of my greatest passions for the past 18 years has been songwriters.

It was in 1979, while living in New York City, that I wrote my first song knowing absolutely nothing about the craft of songwriting or any chords on the guitar. I was a huge Joni Mitchell fan so open tuning worked for me! I'd write songs about the street people that I met like Mr. Edmund, sweet John O'Shannessey who would bring me danishes every morning (I have no idea where he got them from), I wrote worship songs, I cowrote a song with my boyfriend at the time for a friend's wedding and then my most famous song of all "Swing The Sickle" (someday I'd love to play it for you!). While living in New York City at the Lamb's Manhattan Church of the Nazarene - the Lamb's Club - I had the opportunity to play my songs for Bob Benson (of the Benson Company) and he was very, very kind to me - I mean very, very kind! He didn't dash my dreams of being a singer songwriter but encouraged me to just keep on writing!

Well as the story goes, my friends encouraged me to give Nashville a try so I packed up my baby blue Maverick and headed south to Music City USA. I played my songs for Bob MacKenzie, who was an alumni of Houghton College from where I had graduated and he was very, very kind as well but I never heard the words, wow you have something special, a gift, etc. I was a flute major in college and thought that I could always do session work in Nashville until... I observed a recording session with Sam Levine who not only played several wind instruments but he was playing all of the music by ear! I had absolutely no inclination or gifting to play by ear - I needed all the notes written out. I also had the opportunity to sit in the audience of the music variety television show called "You Can Be A Star" hosted by Jerry House at the time. I was selected out of the audience (they called it the stairway of the stars) to sing with the house band "The Rose" - my cousin Roger living in Texas actually saw the show - but alas no record contracts were issued and I figured I better just find a real job.

My first job in the music business was as a receptionist for Lorenz Creative Services, a boutique publishing, production and management company. I met record producer Greg Nelson who hired me within a few months to work as his production manager which I did for 6 years. What a privilege it was to work for not only one of the most successful producers in the late 80's but a very successful songwriter as well - People Need The Lord one of many of his songs that are still being sung around the world. One of my roles as production manager was to "screen" songs from the publishers so I got to know many of the songwriters and publishers. Regie Hamm remembers pitching songs to me and that I told him to just keep working on his craft - little did I know the fire that lit under him! And I might add he certainly did work on his craft and has had great success! Dave Clark was one of those songwriters that I got to know really well.

I left Nashville and moved back to New York City for a couple years to get a much needed break from the music business. I got a call from Dave asking if I'd be interested in a publishing position at the company where he was a staff writer. My first response was no as I knew how competitive it was to get songs cut even back then and didn't know if I could handle the rejection! BUT after some great conversations Dave convinced me to at least interview. I flew to Nashville for the interview and was hired to run Benson Music Publishing with absolutely no publishing experience! What a huge learning curve that was as I didn't even know what a mechanical rate was. But I never looked back and have been in creative music publishing ever since. So back to "Swing The Sickle"...I do believe that that song led to the demise of my songwriting career- people just couldn't see the magic!

So here I am in 2010...doing what I know God has been forming in me over the years, and that is the privilege of serving as a Songwriter's Champion, Coach and Connector. I look forward to sharing my journey in future blogs!