The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) convened this past weekend at the Sheraton Music City, bringing together bluegrass legends, up-and-comers, and fans young and old. Highlights of the event include the band contests and the SPBGMA awards show on Saturday night. This year’s show featured Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Dailey and Vincent, Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Larry Stephenson Band, and the Rascals.
While some of the main events occur in the evenings, regular attendees know other draws–jams in the lobby or tucked away in hotel rooms on jamming floors, showcases by performers, banjo lessons, and hands-on jam lessons.
On Friday afternoon, singer-songwriter Johnny Williams hosted a songwriting showcase in the main ballroom. In the session, open to the public, he was joined by Louisa Branscomb, Carl Jackson, and Jerry Salley. In a songwriters’ round format, the four award-winning songwriters, with recording, performing, and producing achievements under their belts, shared songs and the stories behind them.
Carl Jackson began with the song he says he uses to open his shows “ninety-nine times out of a hundred,”–written during his twelve year stint with Glen Campbell, “Letter to Home.” He also performed his songs that had been released by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Ricky Skaggs, and Bradley Walker.
Louisa Branscomb began with “The Hands of Time,” written, she says, as a wake up call. She also performed her most recorded song “Steel Rails” and the Grammy-nominated “Dear Sister,” written with Claire Lynch. She called on Williams to sing “No Marker on Our Grave” with his signature high lonesome sound.
Larry Salley shared a lesson he learned when first signed as a songwriter by Warner Bros.: The average life from the time a song is written until it is recorded is seven years. Though the advice was disheartening at the time, it proved true with his song “Saving Grace,” written during that time but recorded first by Gina Jeffreys, “the Reba McEntire of Australia,” as well as the Oak Ridge Boys and Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Salley also performed “Paper and Pen,” which his hero Tom T. Hall called his favorite.
Johnny Williams chose to share some of his older songs this year, including his “Mountain Way of Life,” his “two-chord song” and “The Way Things Used to Be,” written fifteen years ago. With his singular delivery, he performed an a cappella gospel song “I’ve Made It Home.”
Williams took time before the last song to elicit advice for songwriters from Jackson and Salley from a producer’s perspective. They expressed a preference for simple demos–a guitar vocal–from writers wanting to pitch their songs. Jackson also noted that while the radio wants up-tempo songs, “you should write your best songs as ballads.”
Branscomb also passed on advice she was given years ago by her mentor Mel Willis: “Don’t use so many words.” Williams made a pitch for the Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) program and then closed with “What About You?”