Songwriters get tips on how to beat the odds

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FLORENCE — Songs are pitched almost daily to people in the music business in places like Nashville, Tenn., but only a fraction of them are ever recorded.

A panel of experts offered some advice for songwriters who want to try to beat the odds and write a hit song.

“How To Get a Song Cut” was just one of three panel discussions presented during this year’s Songfest, an event sponsored by the Muscle Shoals Music Association in conjunction with the W.C. Handy Music Festival.

The first step, said Rodney Hall, president of FAME Music Publishing and the son of FAME Recording Studios founder Rick Hall, is sitting down and writing a great song.

“The song is it,” Hall said. “The first thing you need to do is write a whole lot of songs.”

If a song is written for a particular artist, it needs to fit that artist’s particular musical perspective, said Kirk Boyer, director of A&R for Disney’s Lyric Street Records.

“It all begins with the right songs,” Boyer said.

Lynn Gann, of Full Circle Music, defined a great song as one that has universal meaning that listeners can identify with.

Music publisher Jeff Tweel said most of the songs he expected to be recorded by a particular artist ended up being recorded by someone else.

Tweel said songwriters, of which there were several among the crowd of about 30 who attended the panel discussion at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, must “pour out their soul” in their writing.

“Usually the best songs come from some place deep and meaningful,” he said.
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