Russ Towne's A Grateful Man

I’m in awe as to where this journey has led so far. About four months ago when I started writing my first full lyric I literally couldn’t spell lyricist (I thought it had an “a” in it), and I thought the words to a single song were called “lyrics”rather than “lyric”.

And if you had told me four months ago that I’d get to listen to Steve Seskin (a great songwriter who has seven hit songs that made #1) sing and play two of his newest songs in concert, and then sit down with him one-on-one the following morning to share and discuss songs that Denis Loiseau and I co-created, and that instead of feeling panicked or intimidated I’d feel excited and confident, I’d have asked you what you were smoking. But that is exactly what happened this weekend.

During our discussion Steve Seskin was friendly, insightful, and supportive as he listened to and evaluated both of our song demos. 

Steve said he liked “What Kind of Man Does That?” and thought it was a cool idea and journey.  He recommended changing only a single line of the whole song. It was one of the two lines of the bridge and although he liked both lines, he felt they didn’t tie in to the hook and chorus well enough. I agree.

“WKOMDT” is the song that was screened and selected by Ted Hewitt this weekend, and it was the first song I began writing four months ago when I decided for the first time to seriously try my hand at completing a lyric. Back then, Denis Loiseau saw my first draft and offered to collaborate with me on it, and I wisely accepted. 

Steve Seskin said he loved the lyric/writing of “Rebelry!”Although he thought “Rebelry” was an interesting idea and title, he believes that the song has premise issues. Essentially, it is too happy/upbeat for a song that involves someone dying, and the story is too sober for a song about partying and enjoying life. He said it’s a good idea about how one should live and view dying, but the music fits most of the lyric and we should just scrap the dying thing and focus on something more along the lines of ‘We’re not gonna live forever, let’s have some fun!’

So, I suspect that when Denis and I discuss the feedback we’ll decide to change “WKOMDT” slightly and make substantial changes to “Rebelry”. 

In the meantime, I plan to soon include the versions of the lyrics to both songs that Steve evaluated for me.  

After this amazing weekend, I am indeed a grateful man.

Two of the three demos I presented this weekend were selected by industry execs during the screening process. All were co-written by Denis Loiseau, and two were co-written by me. Two of his and one of mine were selected during the screening process, and another exec took without hearing both of the ones that Denis and I created together.

As I understand it–and please remember that I’m very new to this game–“Selected” usually means that the music industry execs plan to take the songs back to their company to see if any of their stable of performing artists or other types of clients under contract can use them. They usually have one or more of their singers,  bands, and/or media companies in mind when they select a song.

Many songs that are selected are not used, but only selected songs have a shot of going all the way.

I saw many extremely talented performers and song writers this weekend. Some had been presenting songs for several years and not yet had a song selected. Some producers come to the annual conference and don’t select a single song. It is humbling and sobering to hear so many good songs that aren’t selected, and that many of the songs that are selected aren’t used.

Lots more to tell, but I’ve had a total of about 5-1/2 hours of sleep in the last 63, so it’s time for my head to hit my pillow before my face hits the floor.

Today was magic. Ted Hewitt selected “What Kind Of Man Does That?” the first full initial lyric that I ever completed (that the great Denis Loiseau and I then collaborated on and turned into the much better song that it eventually became). Ted produced Rodney Atkins’ multi-platinum breakthrough album “If You’re going’ Through Hell” which yielded four consecutive #1 singles, and who has sung, played and produced for and with some of the biggest names in the industry, and in the past year has produced an album for the legend Patti Page and is producing another album for Rodney Atkins and others).

Feels good to be acknowledged by an industry exec on our first joint effort and my first complete songwriting effort period. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and it promises to be a full one, as I’m scheduled to present:

-“Rebelry!” to Jason Brawner (an independent LA-based producer who has helped over 300 artists write, record and market original music since 1998),

-“What Kind Of Man Does That?” to Steve Seskin (he’s written seven #1 songs for the likes of Tim McGraw, John Michael Montgomery, Colin Raye, and Ricochet.)

I even get to have have a 20 minute private one-on-one meeting with Steve Seskin to discuss “Rebelry!” and get his feedback, suggestions, etc.