Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Song Writer's Contest

"...Like a preacher stealing hearts in a traveling show. It's all over money, money, money, money....and fever, getting hotter. Desire." u2

Last night was the finals in the Central Alabama Country Music Songwriter's contest.

You can read the story of this origins of the song here.

I wrote this country song as a joke. My friend Jennifer, a very talented artist, musician, and home-schooling mother of four thought it was funny and wrote the music to go with my lyrics. She performed it in my kitchen for the first time last summer. You can watch the original performance here.

Later on, my mom saw an advertisement in her small town newspaper about a country music songwriters contest in Central Alabama. We decided to enter with our song--again, just for fun.

Jennifer stole the show in the preliminary, winning first place. We had an automatic bid to the finals.

We arrived at an old high school gym in rural Coosa County last night to an audience of about one hundred mostly elderly country folks. Jennifer performed first, followed by ten other preliminary winners. As before, my talented friend absolutely stole the show.

We won third place. I was happy for Jennifer, but disappointed in the results. It was advertised as a "Country Music" contest, but first and second place winners sung "Gospel" songs with long spoken "tear-jerking" introductions about how Jesus helped them through this or that miserable situation in their lives.

Now no disrespect to my Savior intended here, but I'm not about to use Him to try to win a contest where the top prize is $300.

We did receive some justification in the end. Nashville songwriter Troy Jones was in attendance. He has written songs for country music stars like Kenny Chesney ("Shiftwork" and "Like Me"), Joe Nichols ("Shade"), and one of my favorites "People are Crazy.'

Troy made it a point to seek me out after the contest. "I liked your song," he said. "I thought it was the best in the contest."

Thanks Troy. We did too.

Here's the performance. Jennifer should be in Nashville, don't you think?

52 comments:

  1. Which gym in rural Coosa County? And Ray, is there anywhere in Coosie that AIN'T rural? Sorry Ed and I could not have been in attendance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha, Anita, I guess you're right.

    It was held at Weogufka. The prelim was at Stewartville. I think some of the others were scattered around (Hollins, Goodwater, etc).

    Wish you could have been there. It was fun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I to was at the finals and I enjoyed both the country and gospel songs. I personally know one of the winners that did a gospel song and he only said a few words before performing his song no tear filled story just Praise to God. I hear people comment so many times about country music being tear jerking stories, and etc. I wish people could open eyes and ears to all genres of music and judge it only by the words and messages in the songs be it country or gospel. No disrespect meant to anyone but I don't really think any of that night was about the money. I think that the only thing contestants where trying to do the story behind the song both country and gospel. May God Bless Jennifer, I thought her song was good and cute. It was a fun filled night.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I too like all genres of music, and I would agree that it was not just about the money. I like good Gospel music, but I thought it was inappropriate for the contest.

    My point is that the contest was advertised as a "country music contest"--not a Gospel music contest. I find it ironic the guest of honor, a professional song writer, played and sung "traditional" country music.

    Other than Jennifer, the other contestants who sang traditional (non-Gospel) songs were shut out on the prizes. There were at least two other contestants who had better "traditional" songs than the two who did the Gospel songs. Jennifer's attractiveness, talent, and modesty certainly was a factor in her winning third place.

    My song was written for fun, and I think Jennifer had fun doing it. That's enough for me.

    But I wouldn't bother with entering your "contest" again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And as to the "tear-jerking" aspect, one winner was a "professional" Gospel singer who said he got the idea for the song while meditating at 2:00 a.m. The other told a story about writing his song after finding a loved one dead by his bed.

    Come on. Do you REALLY think that had no influence on the judging?

    Perhaps I should have said I wrote the "Laptop" song after my wife left me for a man she discovered on the internet.

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  6. Well, for me, I loved the song. Found it to be very funny and Jennifer has a beautiful voice.
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