Paul Overstreet was bitten early by the songwriting bug. He recalls the impact of watching Your Cheating Heart, the movie about Hank Williams, and being drawn into a different world.
“Something about it nailed me,” he said, “and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’” At the time, he said, he knew it was a big dream, “a long way for me where I was.”
Overstreet said most of the concerts he saw in high school were such bands as Alice Cooper or Three Dog Night playing in big coliseums. “I just didn’t see how to get to that level.”
He had already started writing songs and playing with a band in school in Little Rock, Arkansas, when he cut a forty-five and sold it locally. People were encouraging, and it caught the attention of a man from Alcoa, Tennessee, who had played on the Opry.
He asked Overstreet to meet with him and offered to help him cut a record, suggesting he could get Floyd Cramer to play piano, as well as other Nashville musicians. Overstreet was excited about the prospect until the man said, “We have to talk about the money. It’s going to cost about fifteen hundred dollars.” When Overstreet said he didn’t have that kind of money, the man suggested he ask his parents for the cash.
“I just blew it off,” he said. “Later, once I got to Nashville, I learned that people did that sort of thing to make money. They figured if you had enough money to make that first record you could come up with more.”
Overstreet also listened when people told him he shouldn’t count on music for a living and would need something to fall back on. He studied mechanical drawing, thinking he could draw up blueprints. After graduating from high school in Texas, he got a job with a construction company, where he and his friends would work hard all day and then go to The Melody Ranch to dance and drink beer.
When Overstreet and his friends heard Tanya Tucker and Johnny Rodriguez were playing the venue one weekend, they bought tickets and went.
“When I saw them on stage,” he said, “I thought that looked like something I could do. They just came out with their band, played their songs, and left. I thought, ‘Okay, that makes sense to me. Let’s do it.’”
He gave his notice and told the company where he worked, “I’m going to go to Nashville and give it a shot.” They told him they’d keep his job open for him. “I thought they were being nice, but they were being sarcastic. They were thinking I’d be back, but I thought, ‘No, I ain’t coming back. I’m going to do that thing.’”
Recently, when Tanya Tucker played the Ryman to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of “Delta Dawn,” she asked Overstreet to join her to sing, “I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love,” since he sang on the original record with her and Paul Davis. He told her about seeing her in Waco, Texas, in 1973, buying a picture and standing in line for an autograph.
Overstreet said when he arrived in Nashville playing his guitar and singing his own songs, he was green enough to think, “I’ll be a star doing this and I won’t have to get a job or anything.” Finally, people told him, “Why don’t you just be a songwriter? You can write songs and record them whenever you want.” Soon he was writing and having hits with other artists. He had written alone before but learned a lot about co-writing in Nashville. Dolly’s uncle Bill Owen started helping him with some of his songs.
Speaking of co-writing, he said, “I wasn’t really keen on that at first because we started changing songs from the way I liked them. but then I started noticing that’s the way Nashville works. It’s a real unusual industry. You have to learn how the industry works. Now I love cowriting. There are so many songs I’d never have written if I hadn’t been co-writing.”
Over his career, Paul Overstreet has written or co-written an impressive body of work. The first song he wrote he heard played on the radio was George Jones’ hit “The Same Ole Me,” one he wrote on his own. Overstreet went on to co-write many of his hits with some of the powerhouse songwriters of Nashville, including Don Schlitz and Paul Davis.
Many of his hits are linked to the iconic performers who recorded them. Randy Travis had a string of hits with Overstreet’s songs, including “Forever and Ever Amen,” “A Long Line of Love,” and “Digging Up Bones.” Overstreet also co-wrote “Love Will Build a Bridge,” the Grammy-winning song associated with the late Naomi Judd.
Overstreet’s songwriting success has earned him two Grammys, CMA and ACM Song of the Year awards, and two Dove Awards. He was also named BMI Songwriter of the Year for an unprecedented five years in a row.
Paul Overstreet has also been successful recording his own songs. He recorded one album as a member of the band SKO. As a solo artist, he hit the Top 10 eight times with his own recordings.
His songs have long demonstrated their lasting nature. “When You Say Nothing at All,” for example, has been a hit for Keith Whitley and Allison Krauss. The song, written with Schlitz, became a global hit when performed by Irish singer-songwriter Roan Keating for the hit film Notting Hill.
This spring, Time Life Retail has reissued nine albums from Paul Overstreet’s extensive body of work on all major streaming platforms. This digital release makes some of his albums for the first time, including My Favorite Demos, volume 1 and 2. These recordings showcase not only the timeless appeal of his iconic songwriting but his vocal and instrumental talent as well.
