In life if you don’t make mistakes you just aren’t trying hard enough. Of course you learn from them and move on but oh can they be painful.

Let me tell you about one I made in 1987 that cost me more than I can even now imagine. I received a call from a guy in New York named John Titta. He had heard a demo of some songs I’d written and loved them. He was a song plugger at Screen Gems EMI who at that time was one of the top two publishing companies in the world. He wanted to sign me to a three year deal. They were going to pay me a nice draw plus demo and traveling expenses to fly me to New York to write with their writers four times a year. It was a hell of a deal looking back but being as green as I was, when the contracts came I handed them over to a non-music lawyer. It wasn’t really his fault he didn’t know the language and customs of the music business and so he chopped their contract up, rewrote it and sent it back to them. When they got it they realized they were not dealing with a professional and walked away. 

In the mean time John had gotten me holds with three big acts. A hold is the first right of refusal to cut a song. Its kind of a gentleman’s agreement between a publisher and an artist that the publisher will stop pitching the song to other acts because the artist thinks it has a good chance of making an album. Of course once EMI walked away from our deal those all dried up and I was left with 100 percent of nothing, which looking back is exactly what I deserved.

This is by no means the biggest mistake I’ve ever made but its one of them and I learned a very important lesson. Always get a MUSIC LAWYER to handle music contracts and legal work. I’ve since shown that contract to one of the top attorneys in Nashville who laughed and assured me the contract EMI sent was a standard agreement and more than a fair arrangement which I would have been wise to sign. OUCH!

Oh by the way, John Titta the junior plugger at EMI who had gone to bat for me, is now one of the Vice Presidents of Warner Chappell (the biggest publishing company in the world) in New York. He’s not answering my calls. (Can you blame him?)

I always loved song writing but, when I was younger, performing and the terror that accompanied it for me just seemed like something I could never conquer. In my early twenties after playing in a couple bands then doing a solo acoustic thing for a while I decided to pack it in. I still wrote recorded and released records for most of my adult life and had a lot of fun doing that but I never performed again for over twenty years.

After my second album in 1987 I got a publishing deal with Criterion Music, publishers for Lyle Lovette, Rodney Crowell and the owners of the song “These Boots Are Made For Walking”. Bo, the CEO, a class guy whom I’ve since become good friends with, tried to get me a record deal and we did come close with CURB records but as soon as any label finds out you don’t play live that’s all they need to hear so it was not to be.

In 1994 I was at the Broken Spoke, a songwriter haunt in Nashville, where I had been commuting four times a year to write while under contract with Criterion. (After it was apparent I wouldn’t be signed as an artist we decided I would write for other acts). My good friend Rick Perry dragged me up on stage and for the first time in two decades I played for an audience.

My friend Jay recently told me a story about a guy who bought a baseball team in the south and spent most of his fortune doing it. When they asked him why he would take such risk so late in his life he said “If it don’t make your hands shake it ain’t worth doin’ “. I guess that pretty much sums up why I decided at this late stage in my life to start performing. You should never do what you don’t want to do but you should always do what scares the hell out of you. That’s because if it frightens you its probably because its important to you and you should do what’s important to you.

I heard Alan Shamblin (cowriter of “I Can’t Make You Love me” for Bonnie Raitte) talk about “running to the roar”. He says that when lions hunt the old lions will position themselves at one end of a herd of buffalo and the young lions will position themselves at the opposite end. The old lions will roar driving the nervous herd into the waiting jaws of the much younger and more dangerous young lions. Shamblin says it’s much safer to run to the roar than away from it. I’d have to say that every time in my life that I’ve done something that scared me to death it always turned out well. For twenty years I cut and ran and to this day I wonder how my life would have been different if I had sucked it up and faced my fears. So now, even though I know I will never be totally comfortable with the dry mouth, shaky hands and churning stomach that live performing gives me, I’d rather deal with them, than one day in my last breath be asking myself “what if”.

I’ve been asked several times lately to attend events where I’m supposed to be giving advice about songwriting. It’s always hard to stand up and represent yourself to people as an “expert” when you don’t really see yourself that way. I’ve been writing songs since I was thirteen so for the better part of forty-two years. I’ve recorded four albums, been employed by three different music publishing companies resulting in songs recorded by other artists including a number of songs on radio but at the end of the day I still feel like an imposter. All I’m really qualified to do is pass on things I’ve learned from trial and error, things that have helped me. Often that knowledge is pretty specific to what I do and the kind of songs I write and only apply to a narrow segment of the songwriting community, and that is, those who are trying to write a commercial song for radio.

All my comments and critiques therefore fit narrowly through the eye of that needle and even then may or may not have any relevance to a lot of songwriters who may be writing for any number of reasons all of which are perfectly sound but are different from mine. I say this because I have seen so called experts trash perfectly good songs by new writers leaving them feeling defeated and dejected.

In the end my opinions as well as those of other songwriters are just that, opinions. Well intentioned and sometimes informative, but not always right. Listen to learn, but always listen with a critical ear.  

There is an open stage run by Rhea March (promoter of U22) and hosted by Chris and Cameron (the owners of hulbert’s restaurant) every Sunday night starting at 7 PM. It is a “songwriter’s only” open stage, which sets itself apart from the rest because it is the only one of its kind here in Edmonton. It’s become a nurturing place for a lot of young songwriters and its turned into somewhat of a cultural hotspot for those who like to hear new original songs.Personally I’d rather hear someone struggle through one of their own songs than confidently belt out someone else’s.

The quality of songwriting is usually first rate and on any given Sunday you can not only hear established songwriters but also new and very talented songwriters who have just made it out of their basements and are just now beginning to share their songs with an audience.  Rhea, who’s ability to make new and old feel at home and confident enough to “walk naked” in front of an audience, gives this event its magic. The sound is great and Chris and Cam have set up television screens all over the restaurant so there isn’t a bad seat in the house.