Lonnie Ratliff Country Music Newsletter
August 17th. , 2008
Note: New Subscribers that would like to read old NEWSLETTERS just click the LINK below
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Number of NEWSLETTER subscribers: 5,991
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I have re-run the chapter from my Wordweaver project at the bottom of this NEWSLETTER because there was a mistake and one paragraph was left off in the last NEWSLETTER - Lonnie
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"Spotlight Artist"
" Heather Myles"
"click" PHOTO below for website
Heather Myles
Heather
Myles (born 1963) is a country singer. Her
honky tonk singing is in the
Bakersfield
sound-style and has been likened by many to that
of Dwight
Yoakam. She has had her songs featured in a major
feature film and has performed with some of the country greats. Building a
dedicated following of fans in the US and Europe, Heather seens to have
succeeded in spite of disdain from Nashville and the major record labels.
"You Will Love Me One Day" features on the film
Transamerica She was born in Riverside, California,
where her parents bred and trained horses for racing. Myles
has released five albums as of May 2007 - including two on HighTone
Records, and two on Rounder. While not a Top-40 country star in the
contemporary Nashville mode, she has had considerable influence on the
larger country-western music sphere due to her stubborn adherence to
traditional country music. Through near-constant touring in the 1990s and
early 2000s, she has built up a small but loyal following that appreciates
her throw-back style and refusal to compromise her vision of what country
music should be.
Not since the glory days of
country, when Loretta and Tammy could easily be found on the airwaves, has
there been a finer example of a female country singing artist. Heather
twangs, rocks and croons in all the right places. There's no saccharine
sweet, overly glossed sentiments here.
Sweet Talk and Good Lies
follows up Heather's 1998 hardcore country release "Highways and Honky
Tonks." With the refreshing candor of Loretta, the understated class of
Tammy Wynette and the voice of a hillbilly angel, Heather Myles gets
straight to the nuts and bolts of what a good country song should be. Real
life. If you're listening Nashville: demographically speaking, there are
more than a few of the female species that are tired of "perfect love
songs." Penning all but two of thirteen tunes on the album, Heather
repeatedly demonstrates she's in touch with what country music fans have
been longing for.
"Click" buttons below for more Heather Myles websites
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Tips for chasin' that neon rainbow
Imagine the world's attention as a big foggy cloud. So thick you could cut it with a knife.
You want to cut through that foggy cloud, to call attention to your music.
Only problem is, if you're well-rounded, you can't cut through anything. You need to be sharp as a knife. Sharply defined.
Example: Your name is Mary and you put out an album called “My Songs”, and the cover is a picture of your face. The music is good quality, songs about your life, and when people ask what kind of music you do, you say “Oh, everything. All styles.”. You send the album out to be reviewed and nothing much happens. Doors aren't opening.
Imagine instead: Your name is Mary and you write 9 songs about food. You put out an album called “Sushi, Souffle, and Seven Other Songs about Food”. Maybe you recorded your vocals in the kitchen. Maybe you quit cooking school to be a musician. Yes it's a silly example, you see how this would be MUCH easier to promote.
You may be thinking, “But I have so much to offer the world, I can't just limit myself like that!” If you want to increase your chances of the world hearing your music at all, though, strongly consider stretching-out your musicial offerings to the world, and keeping each album focused clearly on one aspect of your music.
Notice the long careers of David Bowie, Madonna, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, and Elvis Costello to name a few. Each went through sharply-defined phases, treating each album as a project with a defined mission.
Here's some top-sellers at CD Baby:
Eileen Quinn. She's a full-time sailor. She writes songs about sailing. That's it. Five albums of them. And sailors LOVE it. She gets written-up in sailing magazines all the time.
Rondellus. Sabbatum. A traditional medieval music group from Estonia doing an album of Black Sabbath songs played on medieval instruments and sung in Latin.
4th25. American soldiers in Iraq wrote and recorded an album in their barracks on a cheap computer with a $100 mic, about what it's like to be over there at war.
Each of these albums got a LOT of press and a lot of sales, because they were sharply-defined, newsworthy, interesting to write about, easy to tell friends about.
A person asks you, “What kind
of music do you do?”
Musicians say, “All styles.
Everything.”
That person then
asks, “So who do you sound like?”
Musicians say,
“Nobody. We're totally unique. Like nothing you've ever heard
before.”
What does that person
do?
Nothing.
They might make a vague promise to check you out
sometime.
Then they walk on, and forget about you!
Why???
You didn't arouse their curiosity! You violated a HUGE rule of
self-promotion! Bad bad bad!
What if you had said, “It's
70's porno-funk music being played by men from Mars.”
Or...
“This CD is a delicate little kiss on your earlobe from a pink-winged
pixie.”
Or... “It's deep-dancing reggae that magically
places palm trees and sand wherever it is played, and grooves so deep it
makes all non-dancers get drunk on imaginary island air, and dance in the
sand.”
Any one of these, and you've got their interest.
Get yourself a magic key phrase that describes what you sound like. Try out a few different ones, until you see which one always gets the best reaction from strangers. Use it. Have it ready at a moment's notice.
It doesn't have to narrow what you do at all. Any of those three examples I use above could sound like anything.
And that's just the point - if you have a magic phrase that describes your music in curious but vague terms, you can make total strangers start wondering about you.
But whatever you do, stay away from the words “everything”, “nothing”, “all styles”, and “totally unique”.
Say something!
Derek Sivers
" Nashville Nightlife Internet Radio Show "
Sat Aug
23rd, we’re at the Piscataquis Valley Fair in
http://www.piscataquisvalleyfair.com
Thurs, Aug 28th
we’re at The Bull Run in
http://www.bullrunrestaurant.com/concert.htm
And Friday and Sat Aug
29th & 30th, we’re at The Wagon Wheel
in

Check List for your CD packaging
This is some of the things you need to
make sure you include in the artwork of your
CD 1. The most important thing on
your CD and the one that is overlooked or done wrong the most often is
CONTACT INFORMATION. The first thing you need to do is just PLAN FOR GOOD
LUCK. Just tell yourself as you are laying out your CD for printing that 10
years from today George Lucas is going to be making a sequel to INDIANA
JONES and somehow he has gotten a hold of your CD (It does happen) and he
thinks one of your songs will be a perfect fit for the soundtrack for his
sequel. He starts looking on the CD for some way to get in touch with you.
Will you still have that same Website and E Mail in 10 years ? Probably
not. How many new Websites and E Mail addresses have you already had since
you been on the internet? Will you still be living in that apartment or
home. There’s about a 50/50 chance you won’t even have the same
spouse. You need a permanent contact address on that artwork somewhere.
Maybe a P.O. Box that you always keep paid up or your parents or something.
Just think about what you can do. A song on an Indiana Jones soundtrack
will probably pay you enough to retire on and if you get it or not may all
depend on how you lay out this
album. 2. Info on the SPINE - The
spine is the narrow part of the TRAY CARD that appears on both ends. It is
about 3/8” and is perforated so they can bend it up and it is what
you see when you slip the CD into a CD Rack. The narrow edge in other
words. You will have 2 spines. One on each end of your CD and the info on
them should be identical. That way no matter how you slip it in the rack
you can read what CD it is without taking it out.
Reading from left to right this is
what you will see. Extreme left will be the artist Name in the middle is
the name of the CD and far right will be the record number. I will use the
new Erin Hay CD for a sampler. Your spine will look like this when you look
at it. Erin Hay - the
collection - WIR 0602
D OK for the explaination.
You know your name and the name of your CD so all that may need explaining
is your Record Number WIR 0602 D =
WIR =Westwood International Records / 06 means it was manufactured in 2006
/ 02 means it was the second CD manufactured that year by Westwood
Int’l. Records / D = Disc for Compact
Disc You are welcome to use my system
or invent your own. I know the first
thing you are gonna say is well I don’t have a Record Label. Well
make one up. It makes you look professional, It’s legal and it
don’t cost anything. Also once again PLAN FOR SUCCESS - If you get a
hit song off that CD the Record Distributors will order that CD from the
Record Label (You) by the Record Number. That is how distributors keep
their books so let’s make it easy for them. I also have found that
the more professional your product looks the less likely someone is gonna
try to take advantage and not pay you. Also remember to put your Record
Label address somewhere on the CD. I like to put mine on the back Tray Card
so people can pick the CD up in the store and get the address off it
without having to buy that CD if they don’t want to. It looks like
this Distributed by Westwood
Int’l Records - P.O. Box 41818 - Nashville, TN
37204 3.
CD Cover - That is the front of the CD and is usually a photo of your
smiling face or some other photo of you. This is one of the weakest points
of most Independent Artists CD’s. I can usually look at the cover and
tell if it is an Indie CD or not. I shouldn’t be able to do that if
you had done your job right. This is the first thing a fan is going to see.
You get the same amount of money for your CD as Alan Jackson or Carrie
Underwood does so you don’t get a “pass” on the album
cover photo. Yours should look as good as theirs does or so close that the
average person can’t tell the difference. There has to be some
photographer that lives close to you who can get you a photo that is
competitive. You have thousands of dollars invested in the music on that CD
so spend a couple of hundred dollars so it looks like that’s the kind
of music fans will hear once they buy it. If it don’t look like a
great CD why should they believe it is going to sound like a great CD ?
Here is a good plan. This week go
get a photo taken for your next CD cover even if it is months away before
you start recording. That way it will be done and paid for and you
won’t have to worry about it after you have already blown the budget
in the studio once you do get to make your
album. 4. CD COVER: (The front of
your CD) All you need on the CD Cover
is the photo you are using of course, your name and the name of the
album. Part 2 -
Label Copy I don’t know what
everyone else calls it but I have always called the song information label
copy. It includes the following
information 1. The number of the
track = 1, 2, 3 etc 2.
Title of the song 1. Somebody’s Angel
(2:47) 3.
Time in brackets 7 smaller font following the title =
(2:47) 4.
Underneath the song title in a smaller font and in brackets list the
songwriters (Lonnie Ratliff /
Lindy Gravelle) 5. Under or
following the songwriters names, if you have room, list all publishers and
performance affiliates
Okie
Acres Music (BMI) Lorelle Publishing (ASCAP)
Random reasons why you dang
well better not make a mistake on the label copy.
1. Songwriters names (Spelled
correctly) Songwriters are FREE PROMOTERS if you make sure you have all
their information correct on your CD - How would you like it if the
pressing plant sent your 1000 CD’s back from the pressing plant with
YOUR NAME SPELLED WRONG ? You would throw a fit and send them back if you
could. Well it is your personal responsibility to make sure the
songwriters, musicians, producers names are spelled correctly on your CD.
Remember you are using other people’s property so be respectful and
businesslike. What happens if you
mess up ? You probably won’t ever get another song from that
songwriter and remember if they wrote one song you liked they are probably
gonna write more. More important than that is the fact that a lot of
songwriters have great contacts within the music business and if they think
you did a great job on their song they very well could take it to a label
and you could end up getting a record deal all because of them. What do you
think the odds of that happening are if you spelled their name wrong or
even worse didn’t list
it. Publishing Information. Unlike
songwriters if you don’t list the Publishers correctly they can just
have their lawyer send you a cease and desist letter and you won’t
sell another CD until you get the artwork fixed (at you expense) with
their information correct. Keep in
mind that you as an Artist are responsible for both the songwriters and
publishers getting paid. If you don’t get this label copy correct you
will cost them money. If you want to stay in the music business you need to
make as few enemies as possible. We all know each other in the music
business so what you do today could come back to haunt you years
down the
road.
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"Click Banner Below for Lonnie's Website"
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Spotlight Songwriter = Jim Carter ~
Nashville, TN via Indiahoma,
Oklahoma
Jim has had cuts by Tracy
Lawrence, Moe & Joe, Charly McClain, Brook Benton and tons of Indie
cuts. Go add him as a MYSPACE friend by "clicking" on PHOTO and leave
him a comment if you would like to cut one of his
songs.
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When you "Click" on the ICON above the DOWNLOAD for iTunes 7 will be in the upper right corner of page
Shop for music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, podcasts, and games. For Mac + PC.
"When It's Too Country For Everyone Else, It's Just Right For Me"
Erin Hay
THE COLLECTION "Click" Photo to purchase Erin's CD's THE CIRCLE
"Click" Yellow Button below to play
Lo-Fi Samples from THE CIRCLE CD
Lo-Fi Music Samples from this 23 song CD
"click" on EBAY Logo below
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Lonnie’s Economy Recording Music Package
Check out my little side business. For you artists that can’t afford the time or money to come to Nashville to record right now or just need a song or two to finish out your CD or to put up on MYSPACE etc! - I have a website of songs I own the Master Recordings on and I can lease you the music track and furnish you with a Mechanical license so you are 100% legal for $250 - The only catch is that you have to be able to sing them in the key they are recorded in so just go to the website below to find out. They are much like the Karaoke tracks you buy except most of them are original songs though not all of them and you will have a Mechanical License giving you the right to use the songs. You can post it on MYSPACE, YouTube, Sing it on American Idol, Put it on your CD to sell or sell downloads of it on the internet. You can pay for these music tracks with your credit card if you prefer. I then mail you a CD with the music track and you just take it into your local recording studio and add your vocals and harmony and you got it. If this sounds like something you may be interested in just go to my website below and see if there is anything you like there that is in your key. I have most of the Lyrics posted. Just “Click” on lyrics to see them. Any questions just E Mail me NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net
Visit my website to see what songs are available
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I haven't played one sad song on the
jukebox
I've got a heartache but I don't let it show
I ain't
asked your friends how you're doing
But God knows I'd sure like to
know
Today was our little boys birthday
I'd forgotten how
fast kids can grow
I guess he don't even remember me
But God
knows I'd sure like to know
God knows all prayers are answered
But sometimes the answer is "no"
And maybe you'll never love me
again
But God knows I'd sure like to know
(Inst Break)
God knows all prayers are answered
But sometimes the
answer is "no"
And maybe you'll never love me again
But God
knows I'd sure like to know
Lonnie Ratliff / Billy Stone
Copr. Okie Acres Music (BMI) Billy Stone Music
(ASCAP)
........Demo sung by Tara Lyn
Mohr-Hart
...........Demo singer Ronnie
Kimball
This Newsletter section is meant to help introduce you to some of the other Subscribers to this Newsletter. Just click on the Photos or Banners to go to their websites where you can read about them, send them and E Mail or sign their guestbooks. Take a few moments to get to know some of these subscribers. Lonnie Ratliff
"Click" PHOTOS below
Gary
Jennings ...
.......Kimberely
Murray...
Ray
Barnette...
..Sherrill
Blackman........
.
Brent
Moyer...
........Penni Lawrence.....
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Excerpt from my future book " The Wordweaver "
Early family history (The Weaver side of the family)
By
Lonnie Ratliff
They say that we are the choices that we make in life and I can't argue with that but we are also equally influenced by our ancestors and especially the generations that we can remember. I see my family's influence in almost every song I write and it is a rich field to till since I mostly write country music and as they say "We were as country as cornbread". Sometimes in the songs I write I have to change the names to protect the guilty as Waylon would say and sometimes I just use the names because they are so perfect sounding. In the song "Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home" I wrote with Erin Hay we made the central character's name Sgt. Luther Tibbs which to me sounds like the name of someone who would have stormed the beaches at Normandy like the soldier in our song did. Although as far as I know I didn't have any family members at Normandy Beach. The truth of the matter is my father's name was Luther although he went by L.C. Ratliff and my Great Grandma Ratliff ‘s maiden name was Tibbs so I just combined them for mine and Erin's soldier‘s name.
.
This story is about my mother's side of the family and I have mined that family source for song material on several different occasions.
My mom was Catherene Florene Weaver and I have no qualms about admitting I was a Mama's boy all my life and losing her was the hardest thing I ever have gone through in my life. Mom's parents and my Grandparents were Grandpa Bill (Willie Smith Weaver) who was a twin to Uncle Wilson Weaver and my Grandma Sadie Weaver (Grandma is the "Sister Sadie played piano" in my song "Running Down The Road") . My Mom's brothers and sisters included Uncle Harry who became a Pentecostal preacher and as far as I was ever concerned was a perfect example of a hypocrite and the only one of all my kinfolks I never had much use for. All I ever took from Harry's life was the sad truth that there's some jerks in this world and they sometimes turn up as your kinfolks. My Aunt Rachel (Billie Rachel) Webb was everything an Aunt should be and I have always loved her. From her I, early on, learned some conservative values and that we don't have to be a victim just because of the station in life we are born to. I am sure she never had any idea I was paying attention or knew that her and her husband Uncle Walter set a pretty good example for a little snot nosed "Okie" kid.
My Uncle Leo was one of my heroes and I always thought he was just like "Elvis" and I wanted to be like Uncle Leo. We both had a weakness for pretty girls and fast cars for the early parts of our lives. I learned from Uncle Leo not to be nervous around women just by watching him and because of that knowledge, for my whole life, I have been very comfortable around women and had a lot of women who are very close friends that have added so much to my life. I see it in my songwriting and my life has been better for it.
Uncle "Snake" (Kenneth Ray Weaver) now "Snake" is one of a kind if there ever has been one. "Snake' was the baby in the Weaver family and probably a book unto himself if I had the time to write it. He was what people back then called a "change of life" baby and all I know is he changed everybody's life who ever came in contact with him. He was only two years older than me and we pretty much grew up together and from him I learned how to get along with people who were not that easy to get along with. The other thing I learned by being around "Snake" was that my Grandma Sadie loved him more than life itself. As a little kid it did not make a lot of sense to me because he would do some things that would drive her crazy and she would just say "Now Kenneth that ain't nice" Grandma Sadie never called him "Snake" Oh I almost forgot to tell you how he got that "nickname" When he was a little kid he would always stick out his tongue at everyone hence the name "Snake". Like I said I never understood until I was grown about this unconditional love my Grandma Sadie had for "Snake" but many years later I came to the conclusion that we all need at least one person in our lives that we just love with no questions asked and with no excuses made. I thank God I have always had someone like that in my life. I also thank God that they don't act like Uncle Snake. HA! One last parting snippet about Uncle Snake. After we were both grown he showed up on my doorstep in Macomb, Illinois in an old Pontiac that held everything he owned and on the back bumper was a sticker that said "Hell yeah I'm drunk, what do you think I am a stunt driver" Now you know a little bit about Uncle Snake.
The last one of the Weaver's in my Mom's immediate family was always just known as Little Susie Ann. She died as a child and has always had an almost spiritual hold over our family I have never quite understood even though I myself hold Little Susie Ann with the same reverence every one else in the family does. Maybe her death was such a milestone in my Mom and Aunt Rachel's life who were also children when she died that the love for her along with the sorrow has just managed to be passed down through the family all these years. I know I talked to my younger sister Shirley Ann last week on the phone and she told me she had been out to the Darwin Cemetery and put some flowers on my Mother's and Little Susie Ann's graves so they would look nice for Decoration Day. Little Susie Ann probably died at least 75 years ago but there have been Weaver's and Ratliff's putting flowers on that little girl's grave all these years and there will probably be children and grandchildren of those same Weaver's and Ratliff's taking care of her grave for years to come. We all are the choices we make in life and influenced by our family ancestors and Little Susie Ann has left our family with a tradition that I can't find any word other than "sweet" to explain.
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Artists release your songs worldwide on
Gary Bradshaw's WHP Compilation.
.
.
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Artists looking for someone to help you with your CD Cover artwork, printing and pressing your CD ? Check with Karen Bruno at Amazon Audio
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