For example, I heard on the radio earlier that when Blake Shelton first heard the demo to “Don’t Make Me,” his current single, he wasn’t sure if he liked it because of the song itself or because the demo was being sung by Billy Currington, one of his favorite singers.
My question is, if Billing Currington is singing the demo and such, why didn’t Currington release the single himself?
I don’t know the story, but songwriting is a pretty big business in country music. Some songwriters do it for the royalties, which means they don’t have to spend their entire lives in the studio or touring. He may not have had a disc to realease it on, or he may have been recording music in a different style, and the song wouldn’t work on the disc he was producing.
Classic example is ‘crazy’ , written by Willie Nelson and immortalised by Patsy Cline. I think Willie was coming up at the time and was not a recognised singer, getting a country superstar like Patsy Cline to sing it must have given Willie’s career a rocket boost. Don’t know if your example of Blake Shelton / Billy Currington would be similar? (Don’t follow country music these days, to the extent that I don’t recognise the two names)
The demo recording could have been made before Currington was an established singer, still making some side money singing demos. Maybe.
FTR, words and music for the song are by Deanna Bryant and Marla Cannon-Goodman.
I would imagine money comes into play in some manner.
The Nashville Country Music Industry likes to keep artists in distinctive categories.
Stars. Good Looking men or women with conventionally “good” voices. They sing the songs their managers suggest, until they get more clout.
Songwriters. Write the songs, of course. But their voices may be “off”–Willie Nelson’s style was a bit too bluesy. And his ears stuck out! Definitely not star material. So he went back home to Texas.
Musicians. Nashville session guys are extremely skillful. Since they back up most recordings, there’s a certain “sameness.” But they play all the right notes!
If Stars want to write their own songs or record with their hot road bands, there might be trouble–until they become big enough. Songwriters occasionally become Stars: Kristofferson was ruggedly handsome, even if his voice is questionable.
Songwriters even occasionally “sell” a song to a “star.” That is, they lose publishing rights in favor of a lump sum. Not a wise step–but sometimes necessary due to alimony, bad habits, etc.
Because the lot of them are unmitigated hacks and the fans don’t care who writes the songs, is the short answer. IMHO, most genres of popular music are this way. As Bridget has pointed out, there’s kind of a farm system in Nashville, and getting one of your songs covered by a star gives you a better chance to get called up to the majors [/baseball analogy]
The Beatles and Bob Dylan helped to make being one’s own songwriters important in establishing artistic credibility in pop/rock music. Rock has more of a DIY ethic. This concept hasn’t really caught on in other genres to the same extent, and it seems to be waning in pop/rock, as well.
I’m a tad disdainful of this, because as a person who writes and performs his own songs (admitting bias here), I don’t have a lot of respect for performers who have nothing of their own to say, mimes excepted.
I heard Willie needed the $50 to pay his family’s rent. Money is always a motivator.
And sometimes they don’t.
Dolly Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” and was approached by Col. Tom Parker (Elvis’ manager) about The King recording the song. Parton was excited about the prospect (this was Elvis, after all), until Parker told her that she’d have to sign over the publishing rights and royalties to him. She refused. Now, whenever the song is performed, she gets the money instead of Lisa Marie Presley Keough Jackson Cage.
Dolly was already a star when she wrote “I Will Always Love You.” (She apparently wrote it about Porter Wagoner, her long-time partner. Not Romantic Partner!)
And Dolly Parton has always been very smart.
It boils down to money and marketring. A known star can make X dollars, a new star can make 1/3x dollars, but has potential…
Yeah its that cynical… worse than rock, actually, because country song writers are basically very stupid.,…
think of it as a job requirement
regards
FML
Actually, my bet is that the writers aren’t stupid, but they dumb their stuff down for mass consumption. That’s pretty cynical, too.
The stuff you hear is already dumbed down by the Nashville Evil Empire. Yes, for mass consumption. But Just One Big Song can make a writer’s career.
Check out the good stuff on the songwriters’ albums published by obscure labels. Or see them when they pass through your town, playing at the little folky clubs.
Willis Alan Ramsey’s eponymous album, released in 1972, contains many excellent tunes. One amusing throwaway–“Muskrat Candlelight”–was recorded as “Muskrat Love” by Captain & Tennille. So he avoided the Texas-to-Nashville singer-songwriter route. And went straight to the British Isles to hang out & live on his royalties!
Definitely not a stupid writer, even though he made his fortune with a stupid song.
I didn’t think anyone else in the world had ever heard that album. I’m partial to “Geraldine and the Honeybee” and “West Texas Women”
And Jimmy Buffett used to do “Painted Lady” in concert - don’t know if he still does it or not.
Wow. I’ll have to check that out. I certainly don’t have a problem with a songwriter writing a stupid song to build up enough scratch to do what they really want…the ones that keep on writing stupid stuff because they’re greedy and cynical are another story…and yeah, the Nashville Music Mafia deserve a pit thread unto themselves…
It’s not just country music. I just read a thing yesterday about how Nick Lowe wrote “What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?” about a friend of his. He let Elvis Costello record it and the rest is history. Not sure if he actually gave the rights away, but the effect is the same. It made Elvis a star and made both of them rich.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice sold the rights to “Jesus Christ Superstar” to MCA Records to get it released (a mistake they never made again). Murray Head was the only original singer to take 1/2% of the royalties that was being offered in lieu of the $250 payment for singing on the record.
it seems to me that i read somewhere that the songwriter gets 3% of the royalties from a song’s performance and that the singer gets less than that. so while the writer might get more money by singing and wiritng a good song he might make far more if a famous singer sings it because it will sell so many more copies. this also does not prevent him/her from recording the song after someone else has made it famous and he/she has become famous as the writer of that big song (think Kris kristofferson.)
Throughout human history, the line between performing and composing and between using someone else’s work and coming up with your own have been very very fluid. It wasn’t until the Beatles that it was seen as necessary for a performer to also be a composer. How many songs did Sinatra write himself? Or Elvis?
Not all artists can be good at performing and composing. It’s also an art on the part of the composer to find a performer who can do justice to his or her composition and an art on the part of the performer to find compositions that suit his or her talents. And its the job of the record company to find such combinations that will be commercially successful.
There are other examples of “Famous artist A writes song for artist B which helps to make them famous,” e.g. Paul McCartney writing “Come and Get It” for Badfinger, or David Bowie writing “All the Young Dudes” for Mott the Hoople.