Christian Songwriting...Hall of Fame Writers...Beer For The Troops...

BILL BLOG

Friday August 4, 2023

 

Friday and we’ve made it to the weekend again. Lot of rain in the forecast. We had some yesterday as well and it cooled us off a bit. High of 86 today.

 

YESTERDAY

I had a great songwriting day with my friends Brian White & Nathan Woodard. Those two guys have written a lot of songs that have been recorded by Gospel and CCM artists (Contemporary Christian Music). We wrote at Brian’s place in a songwriter room he had added to his property that he and his Christian artist wife Karyn Williams live on about 20 minutes from me. And on the wall hang a lot of plaques of the kinds of artists I’m talking about that have recorded some of Brian’s songs.

 

 

So knowing who I was going to be in the room with yesterday, I took four lines and a melody of an idea I had that I thought might work. It did as both Brian and Nathan tore into the idea and we wrote it as a CCM type of song. I always learn a lot when I’m in a room with those kind of guys who’ve had so much success in that genre. And that was certainly the case yesterday.

 

 

They both seemed thrilled with the song so that’s more than good enough for me. Now we’ll see what happens with this song as we’ll get into a studio and record it and start pitching it to some of those type artists. Brian’s as big a Reds baseball fan as I am, so his writing room had a lot of Reds memorabilia laying around so that was fun to check out, and there was a lot of conversation about our team.

 

So a very fun and productive Thursday that ended with conversation over lunch at a great little Mexican Restaurant.

 

SPEAKING OF SONGWRITERS

Congratulations to these amazing songwriters going into the Hall of Fame this year. What a string of hits these guys have written. Casey Bethard, Kix Brooks, David Lee Murphy, Keith Urban and Rafe Van Hoy. 

 All of them so deserving. The induction ceremony for the new class will be in October here in Music City.

 

HEALTH NOTES

The FDA has issued a voluntary recall of the birth control pill Tydemy because of reduced effectiveness

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The CDC says babies born in the Fall or Winter should get RSV shots.

 

Cypress is going to allow the human COVID-19 medication to be used on cats to help fight off the mutation of the disease.

 

UH…ACTUALLY YOU CAN’T

 

BEER FOR THE TROOPS

The 91 year old paratrooper who fought in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII has passed away. Quite the war story. Vincent Speranza was in the middle of it and found a tap that would pour beer so he’d fill it up and make multiple trips to share it with the troops.  He was a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient. His story is more than a worthwhile read.

 

 

SPEAKING OF VETERANS

This coming Friday I’ll get to personally hear another veteran’s story and will write a song about that soldiers story when our Freedom Sings USA group sits with a group of those veterans in Little Rock, Arkansas. This will be the 13^th veteran that I’ll have written with this weekend. It never gets old and it’s ALWAYS an honor to sit with a soldier who shares their personal story.

 

 

CANNABIS

They just listed the top 10 cities in the world that consume the most cannabis. 4 of the cities are here in the U.S. Those would be NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston. I’m not sure that I think that the word “mellow” applies to any of those cities so what’s with that? Although Cheech and Chong were California dudes and they were plenty mellow.

 

THIS GEM FROM A HUSBAND

“If you want your wife to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in you sleep”.

 

TODAY

I’m back writing with Jenny Tolman & Dave Brainard and I’m sure their little one Bear will join is in trying to finish up a song idea we started a few weeks back. Jenny is a about to release a new single (that I’m not a writer on) and she and Dave are just back from a show they did out in Reno. So we’ll catch up on all of that and then see what we can do about this song we’re writing on.

 VERN

Then tonight my wife and I are going to go to the Troubadour Theater where a Max T. Barnes, a great songwriter has put together this little tribute show to Vern Gosdin, one of the all time great country singers. Some friends of ours a part of this show including Linda Davis and Lang Scott, so we're looking forward to hearing Vern's greatest hits performed by some talented folks like them.

 

 

 

Have yourself a great weekend!