Female songwriters in Nashville

[jchitty]

I'm wondering how many female songwriters write the grittier stuff in Nashville, in other words, more male oriented songs? Are they successful with this sort of writing? Seems like most of the song writers in Nashville (at least the very active ones) are male, except for women like Lori McKenna who has written songs for Faith Hill. I'm talking strictly about the commercial market, not alt-country. I just think of people like Jeffrey Steele, Rivers Rutherford, Big & Rich (while Gretchen did write some of her songs), and it seems to be a male dominated world. Not complaining, just wondering what an aspiring female country songwriter is in for....would she be relegated to writing for female artists mostly? Not that I would ever even have a hit to worry about, but I wonder what the environment is in Nashville. Also, I've heard if you can't play an instrument well and you write songs, you won't be respected that much. My guitar skills are getting better, but I started playing at a later age, so there is no way I'm going become a good musician, no matter how hard I'd try. At most, I might become adequate, and I'm still to green to play in front of people and sing my songs. I want it straight too.....I'd like to know what any female writer would be in for.

[jchitty]

As an added thought, I might have made the wrong word choice with the word 'relegated.' Any songwriter would be happy to write songs for female artists in Nashville, but they would also like to write male songs as well. I like writing for both sexes, but I tend to write character and storytelling type songs, and this lends itself to writing prison and drinking songs. A lot of women's songs can be gritty as well.

[lbeaird]

Connie Harrington is a writer that I've worked with many times. She's written for Brooks and Dunn, Chad Brock, Joe Nichols, and Phil Vassar plus many others. There are many female writers in Nashville that write for the male artists.Best wishes!Larryhttp://www.beairdmusicgroup.com

[jchitty]

Quote:Connie Harrington is a writer that I've worked with many times. She's written for Brooks and Dunn, Chad Brock, Joe Nichols, and Phil Vassar plus many others. There are many female writers in Nashville that write for the male artists.Best wishes!Larryhttp://www.beairdmusicgroup.comThanks for shedding some light on female songwriting in Nashville. Much appreciated, Larry.

[lbeaird]

Another great female writer who has written songs recorded by male artists is Victoria Shaw.Her songs have been recorded by Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Michael Bolton, John Michael Montgomery, Gary Morris, Doug Stone, and Ricky Martin.We've been honored to have her come over and record at our place many times, and she is wonderful to work with. In fact, she was nice enough to give us a testimonial on our website.P.S. I was working on one of your songs today. I think it's awaiting a vocal and a mix to be complete). I hope you enjoy it.Best wishes!Larryhttp://www.beairdmusicgroup.com

[jchitty]

Quote:Another great female writer who has written songs recorded by male artists is Victoria Shaw.Her songs have been recorded by Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Michael Bolton, John Michael Montgomery, Gary Morris, Doug Stone, and Ricky Martin.We've been honored to have her come over and record at our place many times, and she is wonderful to work with. In fact, she was nice enough to give us a testimonial on our website.P.S. I was working on one of your songs today. I think it's awaiting a vocal and a mix to be complete). I hope you enjoy it.Best wishes!Larryhttp://www.beairdmusicgroup.comHey, Larry,Thanks, I'll have to do a google search on Victoria Shaw....I'll confess I haven't heard of all the female songwriters. I did search Connie Harrington the other day....wow, she does have a lot of credits. Well, I know I'll like the song. Don't wanna schmooze too much, but I've loved every single demo you've done for me. It's my understanding that TAXI is providing a new service for their members(broadjam did this of course in the past as far as submitting songs for listings) where you can submit online of course, and also link up to 50 of your songs. If I'm wrong about this, someone can correct me, but I think that's what has been said. As I say I'm not that technical (gonna learn to be though, hehe), so I don't have my songs on that link yet, (plus they have to get it up and running) but in the next several months or so, I'm going to make some mp3s so that I can showcase my songs...of course, those songs have all been demoed by you.I've gotten some real high marks on your engineering and arrangement. The screeners usually give me lots of compliments on your tracks, commenting on the great quality of them. The main problem with my not getting fowards lies mostly in my lyrics. They like my song structure, my music, but they want my lyrics to take a different direction or be developed a different way....some just don't like the story of the song, etc. So it's subjective in that sense, although these critiques are making me a better writer because I'm getting some sense of what Nashville might want now, stories wise and all. Plus, before I send you a demo in the future, I'm going to get either a TAXI custom critique or a critique by Jason Blume, another songwriter featured on your website. That way, I can fix some problems with my lyrics before we make the demoes....that's probably the way to go. That being said, I still get fairly high marks (well, relatively) on my lyrics too.....but as you know, you have a very high bar to clear with the Nashville listings, so I'll have to keep working to get that elusive "10" song. I think this biz is just about persistence......I know I can write, I just gotta keep honing my skills, getting better and making enough 'darts' to throw at that 'ole target. Anyway, Larry, thanks for all the info!