Back In The Country Songwriting Saddle Again…When Will I Ever Learn? LOL.

This is yet another post in my evidently ongoing series entitled, “Reflections On Being A Writer In the 21st Century”. If you’re interested in checking out more articles in this series, just go to my Pulse Inventory page in The Lumpy Kingdom of The Mighty Hamsters (aka LinkedIn) or my beBee Publisher page.
beBee Publisher Page: https://www.bebee.com/publisher/@jim-murray
LinkedIn Profile: http://tinyurl.com/jmkmxa8
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece which was basically an expansion of an even earlier piece I wrote on Facebook, which was part of an ongoing series I have have had there for several years called The Friday Nite Sermon.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/killing-musical-culture-one-chord-time-jim-murray
In it I basically opined that the authentic culture of country music had died a rather inglorious death with the advent of the crossover culture as represented by Garth Brooks and Shania Twain and the entire generation of mediocre pop shit that rose up in their wake.
While nothing much has changed yet, an old friend and songwriter named Ivan Boudreau who I collaborated with a number of years ago on a few songs, got in touch with me to tell me that, in his opinion, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
He has always been a fan of my writing and told me that he had been talking with some Nashville country music publishers who are starting to see the beginnings of a movement back to a simpler style.
Ivan spends a lot of time doing east coast Celtic flavoured folk music, as that’s where his roots are, although he currently lives in Vancouver. But he found these conversations he had with the publishers very interesting and put me onto a couple of artists who he believes are the standard bearers for this new rootsier movement.
There’s Chris Stapleton, whom Ivan described as ‘country flavoured and within the Texas songwriter tradition of simple, strong and clear down to the bone lyrics’ and John Fullbright, who is a little different but aimed at the same targets as Mr Stapleton.
https://www.youtube.com/user/chrisstapletonmusic
https://www.youtube.com/user/johnfullbrightmusic
Ivan asked me to listen to these guys and then plow thought my catalogue (about 350 lyrics) and see what I thought might fall into that same general area.
Chris Stapleton has won six country music awards so far this year, which means that he could be the genesis of a new movement. This is great for songwriters who write in this vein because there are relatively for country artists who actually write their own material.
I have been down this road a couple of times before. It’s a hard road. But you know what…it’s all about the trip. And I love it.
This time, however, I have the advantage of not necessarily having to write anything, although I probably will. So I spent the better part of the weekend reading through my lyrics and came up with 16 that I thought Ivan would like. I have posted a couple of samples below.
Within a few of hours of sending them to Ivan, I got back a ‘two thumbs up’ email. Damn, I love the Internet.
Anyway, who knows what will happen. Life is a crapshoot at the best of times. But at least I have some dice. I’ll keep you posted. Because the other advantage that we have is that Ivan is a really decent composer, singer and player. And he loves writing music to lyrics, which is great for me, because I consider writing lyrics to music to be closely aligned with many other forms of slave labour.

PS: Big shout out to beBee.com for having a large hive of people who are actually interested in music.

I am a communications professional, primarily a strategist & writer. I work with B to B clients, large and small, graphic designers, art directors and marketing consultants to create hard working strategically focused communications in all on & offline media.
I am also a lyricist and a prolific blogger who likes to provoke thought and wake up the comatose.

If you have a marketing or communications challenge you would like to discuss, (no obligation), there are three ways you can contact me
Direct Line: 416 463-3475
Email: onandup3@gmail.com
Skype: jimbobmur61

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All content, images and lyrics copyright
Jim Murray, Onwords & Upwords Inc 2016

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