Note: New Subscribers that would like to read old NEWSLETTERS just click the LINK below

Because of the Holiday weekend we have left in a few things from last week's NEWSLETTER, omitted the GOSSIP section this week and will be sending the NEWSLETTER out a couple of days early. Thanks to your support we now have over 5,000 Subscribers. - Lonnie

Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning country music singer/songwriter, author, actress and philanthropist. To date, she remains one of the most successful country artists, with 26 number-one singles (a record for a female performer) and 42 top-10 country albums (more than anyone else).

She is known for her distinctive mountain soprano, sometimes bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense, and her voluptuous figure.

Childhood

Parton was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Owens. Her siblings are Willadeene Parton (a poet), David Parton, Denver Parton, Bobby Parton, Stella Parton (a singer), Cassie Parton, Larry Parton (who died shortly after birth), Randy Parton (a singer and businessman), twins Floyd Parton (a songwriter) and Freida Parton (a singer), and Rachel Dennison (an actress).

Her family was, as she described them, "dirt poor."^[1] They lived in a rustic, dilapidated one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, a hamlet just north of Greenbrier in the Great Smoky Mountains of Sevier County, Tennessee. Parton's parents were parishioners in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), a Pentecostal denomination, and music was a very large part of her church experience. She once told an interviewer that her grandfather was a Pentecostal "holy roller" preacher ^[2]. Today, when appearing in live concerts, she frequently performs spiritual songs. (Parton, however, professes no denomination, claiming only to be "spiritual" while adding that she believes that all the Earth's people are God's children.)

On May 30, 1966, at the age of 21, she married Carl Dean in Ringgold, Georgia. She met Dean on her first day in Nashville, at age 18, at the Wishy-Washy Laundromat. His very first words to her were: "You're gonna get sunburnt out there, little lady." ^[3] Dean, who runs an asphalt-paving business in Nashville, has always shunned publicity and rarely accompanies her to any events. The couple have raised several of Dolly's younger siblings at their home in Nashville, leading her nieces and nephews to refer to her as "Aunt Granny." Dean and Parton have no children together.

Career discovery

Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in East Tennessee. At age 9 she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, and at 13, she was recording on a small record label, Goldband, and appearing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. It was that night at the Opry that she first met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her to go where her heart took her, and not to care what others thought. ^[6] The day after she graduated from high school in 1964 she moved to Nashville, taking many traditional elements of folklore and popular music from East Tennessee with her.

Parton's initial success came as a songwriter, writing hit songs for Hank Williams, Jr. and Skeeter Davis. ^[7] She signed with Monument Records in late 1965, where she was initially pitched as a bubblegum pop singer, ^[8] earning only one national chart single, "Happy, Happy Birthday Baby," which did not crack the Billboard Hot 100. Additional pop singles also failed to chart including "Without Love" and "Damn".

The label agreed to have Parton sing country music after her composition, "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," as recorded by Bill Phillips (and with Parton, uncredited, on harmony), went to No. 6 on the Country Charts in 1966. Her first country single, "Dumb Blonde" (one of the few songs during this era that she recorded but didn't write), reached No. 24 on the country charts in 1967, followed the same year with "Something Fishy," which went to Number 17. The two songs anchored her first full-length album,"Hello,I'm Dolly"

Music career

1967 – 1976: Country music success

In 1967, Parton was asked to join the weekly syndicated country music TV program hosted by Porter Wagoner, replacing Norma Jean, who had returned to Oklahoma. Initially, Wagoner's audience was reluctant to warm to Parton and chanted for Norma Jean, but with Wagoner's assistance, she was accepted. Wagoner convinced his label, RCA, to also sign Parton. Since female performers were not particularly popular in the late '60s, the label decided to protect their investment by releasing her first single as a duet with Wagoner. The duo's first single, "The Last Thing on My Mind," reached the country Top Ten early in 1968, launching a six-year streak of virtually uninterrupted Top Ten singles. ^[9]

Parton's first solo single, "Just Because I'm a Woman," was released in the summer of 1968 and was a moderate hit, reaching number 17. For the remainder of the decade, none of her solo efforts — even "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)," which would later become a standard — were as successful as her duets. The duo was named Vocal Group of the Year in 1968 by the Country Music Association, but Parton's solo records were continually ignored. Wagoner and Parton were both frustrated by her lack of solo success, because he had a significant financial stake in her future — as of 1969, he was her co-producer and owned nearly half of the publishing company Owepar. ^[10]

By 1970, both Parton and Wagoner had grown frustrated by her lack of solo success, and Porter had her sing Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues," a gimmick that worked. The record shot to number three on the charts, followed closely by her first number one single, "Joshua." For the next two years, she had a number of solo hits — including her signature song "Coat of Many Colors" (number four, 1971) — in addition to her duets. Though she had successful singles, none of them were blockbusters until "Jolene" reached number one in early 1974. Parton stopped traveling with Wagoner after its release, yet she continued to appear on television and sing duets with him until 1976. ^[11]

She stayed with the Wagoner show and continued to record duets with him for seven years, then made a break to become a solo artist. In 1974, her song, "I Will Always Love You" (written about her break from Wagoner), was released and went to #1 on the country charts. Around the same time, Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that she would have to sign over half of the publishing rights if Presley recorded the song (as was the standard procedure for songs he recorded). ^[12]. Parton refused and that decision is credited with helping make her many millions of dollars in royalties from the song over the years. It was decisions like these, in fact, that caused her to be called "The Iron Butterfly" in showbiz circles. She also claims to have made over $6 million from Whitney Houston's cover version of this song.^[13]

1977 – 1986: Branching out into Pop music

Parton later had commercial success as a pop singer, as well as an actress. Her 1977 album, Here You Come Again, was her first million-seller, and the title track ("Here You Come Again") became her first top-ten single on the pop charts (reaching No. 3); many of her subsequent singles charted on both pop and country charts, simultaneously. Her albums during this period were developed specifically for pop/crossover success. With less time to spend on her songwriting, as she focused on a burgeoning film career, the early 1980s found Parton recording a larger percentage of material from noted pop songwriters, such as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Rupert Holmes, Gary Portnoy, and Carole Bayer Sager. In 1978, Parton won the Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her Here You Come Again album.

From 1974 to 1980, she consistently charted in the country Top Ten, with no less than eight singles reaching number one. Parton had her own syndicated television show, Dolly, in 1976 and by the next year had gained the right to produce her own albums, which immediately resulted in diverse efforts like 1977's New Harvest...First Gathering. In addition to her own hits during the late '70s, many artists, from Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells to Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, covered her songs, and her siblings Randy and Stella received recording contracts of their own. ^[14]

Parton's commercial success continued to grow during 1980, as she had three number one hits in a row: the Donna Summer-written "Starting Over Again," "Old Flames (Can't Hold a Candle to You)," and "9 to 5." ^[15] "9 to 5", the theme song to the movie Parton starred in 1980, along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, did not just reach No. 1 on the Country charts, but also No. 1 on the Pop and Adult Contemporary charts, giving her a triple No. 1 hit. Parton became one of the few female Country singers to have a No. 1 single on the Country and Pop charts simultaneously.

Parton's singles continued to appear consistently in the country Top Ten: between 1981 and 1985, she had 12 Top Ten hits and half of those were number one singles. Parton continued to make inroads on the pop charts as well with a re-recorded version of "I Will Always Love You" from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas scraping the Top 50 and her Kenny Rogers duet "Islands in the Stream" (which was written by the Bee Gees and produced by Barry Gibb) spending two weeks at number one. ^[16]

However, by 1985 many old-time fans had felt that Parton was spending too much time courting the mainstream. Most of her albums were dominated by the adult contemporary pop of songs like "Islands in the Stream," and it had been years since she had sung straightforward country. She also continued to explore new business and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood theme park, which opened in 1986. Despite these misgivings, she had continued to chart well until 1986, when none of her singles reached the Top Ten. RCA Records didn't renew her contract after it expired that year, and she signed with Columbia in 1987. ^[17]

1987 – 1994: Return to country roots

In 1987, along with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, she released the decade-in-the-making Trio album, to critical acclaim. The album strongly revitalized Parton's temporarily stalled music career, spending five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart, selling several million copies and producing four Top 10 Country hits including Phil Spector's "To Know Him Is To Love Him," which went to #1. Trio was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album Of The Year and was awarded "Best Country Vocal Performance - Duo or Group." (A second and more contemporary collaboration, "Trio II," would finally see release in 1999 and would be another Grammy-winning success). In 1993, she teamed up with fellow country music queens Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette for a similar project, the Honky Tonk Angels album.

1989's White Limozeen, which produced two number one hits in "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That" and "Yellow Roses." Though it looked like Parton's career had been revived, it was actually just a brief revival before contemporary country came in the early '90s and moved all veteran artists out of the charts ^[18] A 1991 duet with Ricky Van Shelton, "Rockin' Years," reached No. 1 in 1991, but Parton's greatest commercial fortune of the decade -- and probably of all-time -- came when Whitney Houston recorded "I Will Always Love You" for The Bodyguard soundtrack, and both the single and the album were massively successful. In 1993, she recorded the album Honky Tonk Angels with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. ^[19] The album was certified "Gold" by the RIAA, and helped revive the careers of Wynette and Lynn.

1995 – present: Career today

She recorded a series of critically acclaimed bluegrass albums, beginning with "The Grass is Blue" (1999) and "Little Sparrow" (2001), both of which won Grammy Awards. Her 2002 album "Halos & Horns" included a bluegrass version of the Led Zeppelin classic Stairway to Heaven. In 2005, Parton released Those Were The Days, her interpretation of hits from the folk-rock era of the late 1960s through early 1970s. The CD featured such classics as John Lennon's "Imagine," Cat Stevens' "Where Do The Children Play," Tommy James' "Crimson & Clover," and Pete Seeger's folk classic "Where Have All The Flowers Gone."

In 2006, she earned her second Oscar nomination for "Travelin' Thru," which she wrote specifically for the film Transamerica. Due to the song's nature of accepting a transgender woman without judgement, Dolly received numerous death threats as a direct result. She also returned to No. 1 on the country charts later that year by lending her distinctive harmonies to the Brad Paisley ballad, "When I Get Where I'm Going." ^[21] In September 2007, Parton released her first single off her own record company, Dolly Records titled, "Better Get to Livin'", which eventually peaked at No. 48 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Her latest album, Backwoods Barbie was released February 26, 2008 and reached #2 on the country charts. The album's debut at No. 17 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart was the highest in her career. ^[22]

Songwriting

Parton is a hugely successful songwriter, having begun by writing country music songs with strong elements of folk music in them, based upon her upbringing in humble mountain surroundings, and reflecting her family's evangelical Christian background. Her songs "Coat of Many Colors" and "Jolene" have become classics in the field, as have a number of others. As a composer, she is also regarded as one of country music's most gifted storytellers, with many of her narrative songs based on persons and events from her childhood. Parton has published almost 600 songs with BMI to date and has earned 37 BMI awards for her material. ^[23]

What makes some songs work and where to find ideas for songs.

Lonnie Ratliff

After writing for a little while you will figure out that no matter how good you get at the craft of writing or how clever you become at unique rhyme schemes the song you end up with is still going to be no stronger than the original idea that you started out with. A new song with a fresh approach is always welcome by the record buying public and depending on just how original it is a songwriter stands a pretty good chance of becoming financially set for life if they can come up with the right idea. It can sometimes be such a small thing that we as a listener are not even aware of what happened to make us like it. Here's a few examples.

1. Ode To Billy Joe - The sound was fresh and different for the times but what sold the song to us was the "mystery" of just what in the heck they were throwing off the Tallahatchie bridge. To this day we don't know the answer but we all know the song.

2. Harper Valley P.T.A. uses the fact of class envy and the listener is rooting for the mother who tells off all the high society folks in a small town much to our delight.

3. "I've Got Friends In Low Places" was the mega hit that separated Garth from everyone that had came before him in country music and so far have come after him. Just what made this song work so well that it even drew college kids into the stores to buy country music ? A lot of people thought it was the sing along chorus but I think Garth had us "Hooked" with the opening lines. "Blame it all on my roots I showed up in boots and ruined your black tie affair" with that opening line he gave the main character in the song permission to pretty much act like a jerk simply because he was just a common man and we all lived vicariously through that character pretending that was what we would do if we were in that situation. The truth is none of us would ever go to a wedding and act like that but it was fun for us to pretend for 3 minutes that we would.

4. If you can remember some old saying your grandpa used to say odds are it will eventually end up as a "Hit" and like the rest of us songwriters you will be kicking yourself saying "I've heard that all my life why didn't I think to write a song about it" Examples are "I Ain't As Good As I Once Was But I Am As Good Once As I Ever Was", If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me and dozens of other old sayings and jokes that all end up as songs you could have wrote.

5. Current things happening or being said in the world around you. We all saw those wooden crosses alongside the highway at the scene of a fatal accident years before we heard the song but all of us are not songwriters on "Three Wooden Crosses" except for Doug Johnson and Kim Williams because we let such an obvious sign as that slipped right by us.

6. Books are a great place to get ideas from. If you are like me and love to read and have read all of your life you will have so many ideas and variations of ideas that you will never live long enough to write all them anyway. If you do not like to read that much but understand the value to your songwriting you can pick out a few sources that will generate a lot of fertile ground for ideas. You can buy used books on EBAY for next to nothing and for country songs I would recommend getting a collection of short stories by Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Carson McCuellers as a wealth of background material you can comb through. Some of these short stories are available for free to read online. I have thought about writing a song based loosely on a short story by Walter Van Tilburg Clark called the Ox-Bow Incident and I just GOOGLED it and found a PDF File online where I could read it free of charge so I could get reacquainted with the story. The trick you need to learn when using a story for inspiration is to not take anything from the story but the basic idea or truth shown in the story and retell it in your own words with a different setting, characters and time frame.

For those of you who may have read Ernest Hemingway's "Snows Of Kilimanjaro" when you were in highschool here is a song I wrote with Vaughn Lofstead entitled "The Mountain" http://soundclick.com/share?songid=4893307
which came from that Hemingway story along with a conversation I had with a man working on a rescue team who said that people living in an old folks home near this mountain in Maine who were a bit senile or even Alzheimers patients were always wandering off and getting lost and that they always headed for a mountain near there. I just used the basic idea that mountains do have a mystical draw to them and wrote the lyrics to "The Mountain" and if I had never mentioned it I doubt anyone would ever suspect that the original inspiration was "The Snows Of Kilimanjaro"

7. Movies are another source for ideas but the competition from other songwriters also using them will be greater than for books. I can't believe how many songs I have heard that more than likely came from the movie "Titanic" and though I have no way of knowing for sure I would almost be willing to bet the farm that Garth Brook's song "That Summer" was inspired by "The Summer Of 42". I also remember a lot of songs were writtten that seemed to be somewhat based on "The Bridges Of Madison County"

Talk about a great place for inspiration the mini series "Lonesome Dove" could keep you busy for years.

Another goldmine would be to rent the old classic movie "The Last Picture Show" It will give you a real insight into the people living in small town America.

These are just a few ideas that will help you come up with an idea for a song where you are not just stating the obvious. Remember we already know that it feels good to be in love and it sucks to lose at love so tell us something new if you want to get our attention.

Lonnie Ratliff NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

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2 Out of Print Erin Hay CD's available as legal downloads

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To purchase i-Tunes downloads "click" on above CD Cover photos

If you prefer to download from CDBABY use LINKS below

http://cdbaby.com/cd/erinhay ==== http://cdbaby.com/cd/erinhay3

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Spotlight On The Songwriters

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.....Becky Hobbs ...................Connie Knapp ....................Kacey Jones ........

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Artists & Songs Produced by Lonnie Ratliff

"click Photos for websites

Big-B (Norway) just finished recording his debut CD with Lonnie Ratliff in Nashville. Expect a release later on this year as soon as he has the artwork completed and the songs mastered. In the meantime you can get an advance listen "Click" Photo to Visit Big-B on MYSPACE.

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Eric Richards is an excellent singer/songwriter from Blaine, MN who is working on a CD project with Lonnie Ratliff. This is not the typical fiddles & steel guitar music you may be used to from Lonnie and the crew in Nashville but "click" the photo and you will be convinced as a producer that Lonnie is not a one trick pony and Eric's songwriting and singing is a long way from typical but we believe you will love it.

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Timmy G is in the process of recording a CD with Lonnie. Check out his MYSPACE if you are a big fan of current sounding country music with great vocals and great songs. Make sure you listen to 16 Sunset Lane.

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"click" ICONS below to watch

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Doug Jones ........................Peggy Lynn.......................Bengt Pedersen (Norway)

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Lonnie's "Spotlight Songs"

Memorial Day is Monday - May 26th.

Memorial Day / Veteran's Day Song

Written by Lonnie Ratliff and Erin Hay "Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home" has had a recurring popularity every year during Memorial Day and Veteran's Day each year since the initial release. Originally recorded by

Erin Hay ErinHay2002@yahoo.com it has also been covered by

Mike Anderson MikenMaidy@aol.com with both of the versions receiving a substantial amount of airplay each year.

"Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home" is a story about a soldier survivor of the landing on Normandy Beach who is now spending his last days in a home for soldiers and how those horrific days from his military past haunt his nights. In truth the deeper meaning of the song is how we all battle with lonliness especially in the latter days of our lives.

FREE DOWNLOADS AT SOUNDCLICK for 1 week

Erin Hay - Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=2773633

Mike Anderson - Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=5963138

If you are unable to download from SoundClick just E Mail Lonnie for an mp3

NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

"Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home"
(Lonnie Ratliff / Erin Hay)

He Woke Up In A Cold Sweat Now He Can't Go Back To Sleep
It's That Nightmare From Normandy When They Stormed The Beach
In The Middle Of The Night That Memory's Bright As Day
A Cross That He Still Bears, A Debt That He Can't Pay

He Was Known As Sergeant Luther Tibbs In June Of 44
And He's Still Haunted By The Ones Who Fell On That Shore
Well For Some The Battle's Over But For Luther It Lives On
In A Rockin' Chair At Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home

     It's Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home

     He's Sitting There In His Rockin' Chair, Rockin' All Alone

     And Chances Are He'll Still Be There At Dawn

     It's Midnight At The Old Soldiers' Home

Some Ladies Came To Visit From The Southern Baptist Church
One Gave Luther Butterscotch And One Read A Bible Verse
In The Seasons Of His Life Luther's Late Into The Fall
He's Known Love And He's Known Friends And He's Outlived 'Em All

(Repeat Chorus)

TAG: He woke up in a cold sweat now he can't go back to sleep
Lonnie Ratliff & Erin Hay

Copr. 2005 Okie Acres Music (BMI)

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From the Desk of

Gary Bradshaw

Subject: PROMOTIONS/CHARTS

As I get hundreds of questions concerning this subject, I felt the need to explain how it works and the differences between charts and the methodology used to come up with them. I will only explain about the Country Charts although many of them produce a chart of other Genre’s as well.

We’ll start with New Music Weekly (NMW) one of the leading Charts today, friendly to all, Majors, Major Independents, and Independents. They have a group of Radio Stations both terrestrial and Internet which they call Reporters. These Reporting stations report every week which Artists/Song/Label and how many spins for each get played on their station during each weeks reporting period.

New Music Weekly(NMW)
http://www.newmusicweekly.com/

This Chart is for Current Singles Only, new releases. Each week the reported playlist with its number of spins is computed and the charts are then derived from the amount of spins reported to NMW. The Artists with the most reported spins for that time frame is in the #1 position followed by the 2^{nd largest amount of spins and then the 3rd
etc. down to the Top 85 Artist reported that week. Their chart is divided
into 3 sections, Top 50 which gets printed in their Magazine. The next
section 51 thru 55 is called "Chartbound". The next section is called
"Country Up & Coming 56 thru 100. These are Artist/Songs that are
receiving enough Airplay or spins to be mentioned and watched. Many of them
will eventually reach the higher sections of the Charts and some will fall
by the wayside before reaching the other sections. All in all, these are
the Top 100 Artists with the highest amount of spins that week being
reported to NMW from their Reporter base}

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Music Row (MR)

Music Row, also a very respected Magazine and Chart is very much like the above NMW chart with the exception of, I don’t believe they allow Internet Radio to Report. They also provide a great source for Stats and other Chart information. Based in Nashville.

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Indie World Chart(IW)
IW is based in Tennessee and produces a weekly chart based on all radio Station Playlist sent to him by all stations providing they report the required information. Name/Song/Label/Spins. This chart is also for Current Singles Only.
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Please keep in mind that some Radio Stations do report to all the Trade Publications and some only report to 1 of them. This is the reason for so many differences in each of the Charts. All use different methods and reporter base information. You can be doing great in one and not even show up in others.

Promotions is the single most important thing you can do after you have a great project to Promote and many fall very short in this area. Keep in mind that a good promoter has to have a lot of knowledge about how the Music Business works and the many changes that take place everyday. He/She has to be willing to go the extra mile to get all that can be had from each project and should always be aware of the songs around your project. Know your competition.
Promotions comes in many ways today, Telephone, Emails, Friendships, Experience, Label help and support, Web Sites, Newsletters, and Communications when needed
http://www.indieworldcountry.com/ ONLY. In almost all cases her, these Artist and their current single release are being PROMOTED by recognized Promoters with years of experience in this field. The competition is fierce and promoters earn every dollar they are paid. NMW provides a great deal of other important information for the professional Artist, Label and Promoter. Based in California.. Also keep in mind that it all starts with great songs and great productions and Great Promoters.

Many a great Songs and Albums have bit the dust way too soon because of a lack of promotions or promoted by someone who really did not know what they were doing. Kind of like going out and buying a new car, bringing it home and refusing to buy any gas for it. You have a nice new car but it’s not going anywhere because of no gas. Like any under funded business it normally has to close its doors soon because they can’t compete with the guy next door who is selling the same stuff but well funded.

If you would like to discuss Promotions and the cost in more depth, please call 602-896-9910 or email me at gbradshaw3@cox.net .

Thank you
Gary

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Western Heart Room (Audio & Video of Independent Country Artists)

Stop in and get to know the DJ's and get them to play your music & YouTube videos

Hello Everyone

I want to tell you about a new Stand Alone Chat Room I have opened. By stand alone, I mean we are not part of a community such as PalTalk and the many others now online. We are our own community of DJ’s, Artist, Fans and Friends of Country Music. We are open 24/7/365 . The room was designed to provide a meeting place for all the above. We currently have DJ’s and Artists from all around the World who play their favorite music from you and others.

The room also has full video capabilities with television quality. The sound quality is second to none on the Internet today. As each DJ playing his/her favorite music, the variety of music ranges from early to top 40 current Country, Bluegrass, Gospel and alternative as well as a few surprises thrown in from time to time.

Planned events such as the following are forthcoming and some are in place already.

DJ’s playing your songs.
Full Video’s shown in here.
Featured Albums.
CD Release Parties.
Karaoke times
Open Mic night’s
Give aways
Contest (Prizes such as gift cards to well know national retail stores).
Live Interviews and Telephone Interviews.

And much more.

Easy Instructions for the Western Heart Stand Alone Music and Chat room.

Go to: http://www.fantasyltd.com/gary/1.html

A Box will come up which will have 2 options. 1, “Will say, First time users click here.” The other will say “Click Here To Enter Room”

If you have never been here before please click on option 1 and follow simple instructions to download the Client. (Takes about 30 seconds) When the TC Client comes up just click on “RUN”. When it finishes, it will then give you the option to “Click Here To Enter Room” It will then ask you for a User Name and Password. Type in your name and click “Login” YOU DO NOT NEED A PASSWORD SO PLEASE LEAVE THIS BLANK. Please click Login and it will bring you into the room.

Be sure to add to your favorites and do a save as.

Come and enjoy best sound on the Internet with full Video.

Thank you

Gary gbradshaw3@cox.net

Message from Lonnie about the GOSSIP SECTION - You can E Mail me your gossip anytime. (I just save it in a file until I make up the next NEWSLETTER)

Just send me an E Mail with 2 or 3 sentences and you can include your website and E Mail if you like. Try to make it interesting enough people will want to read it. Don't have to be about music just something that is happening to you. If it looks like you may have thought about what you wrote for at least 30 seconds I will probably include it in the next Newsletter which means your website LINK will go out to over 4,900 people that are in the country music business. If it looks like you are obviously just using the gossip section for free advertisment I probably will skip over it. Heck folks most of us claim to be writers so we should be able to write 2 or 3 sentences.

Make sure you put GOSSIP in the subject line of your E Mail when you send it so it don't get lost.

E Mail GOSSIP to: NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

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What to do while you are waiting for that record deal.

Lonnie Ratliff

The wheels turn slowly in Nashville but that doesn't mean you can't be doing something while waiting to sign the big record deal. Since you are out there working the club circuit anyway and paying those dues you might as well start putting together a show that will be working for you when you finally release that first major label single. Once you become a star with a top ten record on the charts your days of singing George Strait, Alan Jackson, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, etc. cover tunes are pretty much over. A promoter is not going to pay you to sing cover tunes. You will be stuck with your radio hit and whatever else the label may have recorded on you. Labels are quickly getting away from cutting a whole CD on new artists right out of the chute and instead are releasing singles just hoping something will stick. Remember that labels are in the business to sell music. It is not their responsibility to see that you are working gigs.

What you can do is start putting together your live show where it includes original material that works with your fans. This does not mean get the band together one night and write a half dozen songs and just add them to your set list. Odds are none of the half dozen songs you and the boys wrote are gonna be barn burrners that has the fans screaming to hear them. If you get 3 or 4 songs a year out of your songwriting that will hold their own with the cover tunes you are already singing you are one heck of a songwriter. I always tell everyone to just sing the new original song in between two of their popular cover songs and just watch the crowd. If you have to do the "here's a song we just wrote" introduction for the song to hold it's own then it is not what you are looking for or what you need.

Your next step is to find some songs and the best way to do that is get to know some songwriters. Unfortunately the songwriters who are getting the Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Trace Adkins, Miranda Lambert etc! cuts have gotten used to making "lots" of money from their songs and let's face it they are not gonna give their best songs to some artist in Bug Tussle, Oklahoma who may or may not get a record deal and may or may not have a "hit" song someday with one of their songs. Now this is a reality you as a singer are gonna have to learn to deal with. Another reality is that the real popular songwriters who are getting the big cuts don't write all "Hits" so don't think anything with their name on it is the answer. There are literally thousands of songwriters, just in Nashville alone, who have 2 or 3 songs each in their catalogs that are as good as anything you hear on the radio written by whoever is the big songwriter of the moment. Your job is to find them.

I remember there was this young girl came to town looking for songs to record and no one was giving her the real good songs. She was just 13 years old so she didn't hardly have a prayer at ever doing anything, at least not in the immediate future. She went back home and got a song from an older local songwriter who had had a few hits in the past but was not really pursuing the songwriting thing anymore. She recorded the song and it made her a houshold name overnight. The song was "Blue" and the singer was LeAnn Rimes.

That's how creative you have to be in searching for songs. Once you get into the system you are not gonna have the control over what you cut until you are a mega star. Until then you don't have anything more important than finding the songs that will make you a success.

If you sign to a major record label you are gonna be surrounded by so called experts who think they know what is best for you but until then you have the ability to test market songs with the people who will end up buying or not buying your music. Get out there and find those songs and try them out on your fans when you do a show. Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with being wrong about a song. You don't have to be an expert when you have a dance floor or night club full of real experts, the music buyers.

If they like the song keep it and if they don't drop it faster than a major label drops a non selling artist. All of this work in putting together your show has to be done eventually if you are gonna be a success so you might as well be doing it now as have some New York, Nashville or L.A. music consultant do it for you. If you have a show that is working they will probably leave it alone. They just want to make money so if you are packing in the clubs playing original music they will be happy to just put their label on it and sell it.

Lonnie Ratliff NashvilleShowcase@comcast.net

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