Summer 2006 - Songwriters Association of Canada

President’s Message
The 50% Solution
S
ix years ago, when I first
addressed the S.A.C. annual general meeting as President, I
began by mentioning the ancient
Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."
Well curse or not, things have certainly been interesting. Perhaps the
last six years have seen the most music
industry upheaval since the advent of
radio when the industry, then thriving on the sales of piano rolls and 78s,
cried "The sky is falling!" because
music was being played free for anyone who owned a radio. Of course
license fees and public performance
royalties were created and a vibrant
songwriting industry was born.
In our current world, I’m sure
there will also be solutions
to the problems we face;
it’s just a matter of what
and when.
Lately, we seem to be
the target of everyone
who has an interest in our
music. Fans want to get it
for free; record companies want to hold us to
deals at the same or worse
mechanical rates for paid
downloads compared with
CDs that no longer need to be
pressed; radio wants to play it and pay
less money for the right; satellite
radio gets to play less Canadian content than broadcast radio and broadcast radio wants to play less CanCon
than they do now. Interesting times
for sure.
Recently I was in Ottawa speaking
at the CRTC radio hearings of the on
behalf of the S.A.C. We had several
points to make clear, most notably,
increasing levels of CanCon on radio.
Our position at the S.A.C. is that
CanCon should be increased to 50%,
giving Canadians a level playing field
on our own airwaves. We feel that
both songwriters and radio broadcasters have and will continue to prosper,
given fair legislation of the appropriate amount of mandated Canadian
music.
We should hear sometime this fall
what the results of this radio review
will yield. We’re keeping our fingers
crossed that the news will be good.
Last summer’s satellite radio deci2 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
sion to allow two American satellite
services into Canada and letting them
get away with playing as little as 15%
CanCon was devastating. We hope
that the CRTC may have sharpened
their focus this time out.
Looking forward, there are many
changes afoot here at the S.A.C.. First
of all, I am very pleased to announce
the appointment of our new
Executive Director, Don Quarles.
Don comes to us with vast experience
as a coordinator and planner of
entertainment events, working both
independently and through his many
years at the Hummingbird Centre. As
well, Don is the mentor co-ordinator
of a great songwriters-in-the-schools
program that allows students from
grade school to high
school the opportunity to
learn and grow as songwriters. Don’s passion for
songwriting is evident to
us on our board and
we’re sure that it will be as
exciting to our members
as it is for us. Welcome
Don.
Also looking ahead, I
have decided that after
devoting six years of
blood, sweat and tears into the S.A.C.
as President, I will be stepping aside.
During our recent S.A.C. Board meeting, we elected Haydain Neale to be
the next S.A.C. president. We’re sure
that Haydain will bring his unique
energy to the position and we look
forward to the fine work that will be
done during his tenure. For my part,
I’m sure I won’t be bored in my new
life as Past-President as I have recently been elected to be the President of
the SOCAN Foundation Board, which
will offer me great new challenges
and certainly be keeping me busy.
All in all, great things ahead.
Stan Meissner
EDITOR Nick Krewen
MANAGING EDITOR Beverly Hardy
LAYOUT Lori Veljkovic
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No. 40014605
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ISSN 1481-3661 ©2002
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STAFF
Executive Director Don Quarles
Manager of Operations Beverly Hardy
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President Haydain Neale
First Vice-President Shari Ulrich
Second Vice-President Eddie Schwartz
Secretary Christopher Ward
Treasurer Sean Hosein
Past President Stan Meissner
Directors Erin Benjamin, John Capek,
Lisa Dalbello, Lennie Gallant,
Bill Henderson, Marc Jordan,
Dan Kershaw
ADVISORY BOARD Jann Arden, Randy
Bachman, Tommy Banks, Liona Boyd,
Tom Cochrane, Richard Dodson, Rik
Emmett, Micky Erbe, Roy Forbes, David
Foster, Alan Frew, Dan Hill, Paul
Hoffert, Paul Janz, Ron Hynes, Ron
Irving, Arnold Lanni, Geddy Lee, Mike
Levine, Colin Linden, Rita MacNeil,
Sarah McLachlan, Murray McLauchlan,
Dean McTaggart, Frank Mills, Ben
Mink, Adam Mitchell, Gerald O’Brien,
Gary O’Connor, Declan O’Doherty, Blair
Packham, Dave Pickell, Raffi, Cyril
Rawson, Sam Reid, Tyler J. Smith, Ian
Thomas, David Tyson, Sylvia Tyson,
Valdy, Jim Vallance, Nancy White
Contents
SUMMER 2006 Volume 9 Number 2
COVER PHOTO: ANTHONY MANDLER
PHOTO: MUCHMUSIC
Features
4
MEET THE NEW (S.A.C.) TEAM
Executive Director Don Quarles and President Haydain Neale
5
SINGING CSHF PRAISES
New President Eddie Schwartz Takes Hall Of Fame Into The Future By Nick Krewen
6
HOME ADVANTAGE: MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION
When Should You Let Go of Your Publishing? By Paul Sanderson
7
THE WAY ROXANNE FEELS
Impresses Messrs. Hiatt, Cockburn and Lanois By Nick Krewen
8
FURTADO FEVER
Teaming Up With Timbaland For Nelly’s Hot Summer Sounds By Nick Krewen
11
FACTORING IN CHANGES
Recording Industry Funding Program Gets
Streamlined By Nick Krewen
12
17
HEY TONY: WHAT MAKES
MUSICALS TICK
Creators Of The Drowsy Chaperone, Hair and The
Hunchback of Notre Dame Reveal All By Nick Krewen
16
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS
17
URBAN MYTH
PHOTO: ANDREW MACNAUGHTON
Saukrates Addresses The State of Rap, R&B and
Canadian Publishing By Haydain Neale
19
8
BLUEBIRD NORTH
7
PHOTO: JOAN MARCUS
12
GREG MORRISON
LISA LAMBERT
Cast of Drowsy Chaperone
The Don Of A New Era:
Meet Our New Executive Director
ere I sit at the
Executive Director’s
perch at the national
head office on Soho
Street in Toronto,
excited about what the future holds for
the Songwriters Association Of Canada
(S.A.C.) and the Canadian music industry in general. If the next few years are
as exciting as the last several, we are in
for some interesting times.
Although I saw some of you at the
July 4th annual general meeting in
Toronto, I wanted to say hello and
introduce myself to those of you I have
not met. As a fellow songwriter, I have
an expectation that the S.A.C. will continue to play a key role in advocating
songwriter rights as well as strengthening our community as creators and
allowing opportunities to further develop our craft through educational workshops.
As one who comes from a career of
planning and producing events of all
shapes and sizes, I hope to use that
experience to help develop and
improve on current S.A.C. programs
and ensure that we continue to offer
everything from workshops on the craft
and business of songwriting, special
showcases of S.A.C. members and other
great Canadian and international song-
HAYDAIN
H
H
ello, my friends. Welcome to a
new year for the Songwriters
Association of Canada. The next
12 months will see some exciting initiatives underway in terms of advocacy, education and even community for S.A.C.
members.
Over the years the S.A.C. has evolved
along with the needs and goals of the songwriters that created it. This upcoming year
4 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
writing talents, as well as allowing for
more networking opportunities for all
members from beginner writers to
pros.
Having had the satisfaction of
attending, hosting and facilitating
many songwriting workshops over the
years (some of which I have seen many
of you at) and having also had the
pleasure of attending numerous S.A.C.
events, I hope to bring programs and
services to you that are both meaningful and beneficial.
With the guidance of our new
President Haydain Neale and new
Board members and armed with the
experience of Operations Manager Bev
Hardy and Past President Stan
Meissner, I am excited about the future
direction of the S.A.C. I encourage you
to take a look at the S.A.C.’s new website
and suggest after you check out its new
features and visit the new board, you
bookmark the page for regular visits.
We plan to have some great surprises
for you in the near future.
Also, tell your friends about
www.songwriters.ca… before you know
they’ll tell two friends – and so on. You
can let them know that with our new
online registration feature, they are just
a few clicks away from reaping the benefits of a great membership opportunity.
In the meantime, I welcome you to
contact me if you would like to share
your ideas and thoughts on what you
have enjoyed and benefited from with
past S.A.C. programs as well as any
areas you feel the S.A.C. could serve
you better as a member. Better yet, feel
free to come by the Toronto office
when you’re in town and we can meet
face to face.
In a profession (or pastime) that can
be often “solitary,” it’s nice to know we
have a community of like-minded folks
to count on for support and advocate
for our rights as creators!
Thanks for making me feel welcome
in the S.A.C neighbourhood.
Don Quarles
Executive Director
NEALE APPEAL:
Meet Our New President
will see the fulfillment of many of those
goals, including an updated website at
www.songwriters.ca to build a stronger
community of S.A.C. members from coast
to coast; a national outreach program to
high schools to encourage creativity and a
passion for creating, and the establishment
of the S.A.C. Pro Members Committee to
specifically facilitate the particular goals of
the full-time songwriters among us.
In short, what songwriters have been
asking for, your S.A.C Board of Directors
has been methodically, steadily, working to
deliver -- and on behalf of that same hardworking Board, I'd like to thank you for
your continued inquiries, suggestions, support and enthusiasm as we move forward.
Now, as far as our Songwriters Magazine,
S.A.C. will continue to keep you updated
on all the community events and industry
news that you've come to expect.
We will also be including more genre
specific articles than ever before so that we
can tell many more sides of the songwriter's story, from pop tales to hip-hop
diaries, from country confessions to musical theatre musings.
After all, we may sing in various voices
and keep folks grooving with different
beats, but in the end, we're all songwriters
trying to grow creatively and professionally one tune at a time.
Take care, be well and keep on doing
your thing.
Haydain Neale
President, Songwriters Association of Canada
Board Member, Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame
Singer/Songwriter, jacksoul
CSHF NAMES SCHWARTZ PRESIDENT
ANNOUNCES JANUARY 28
AS THE 2007 GALA DATE
T
he Canadian Songwriters Hall
Of Fame (CSHF) has hit you
with their best shot: Eddie
Schwartz is their new president.
The Toronto songwriter, producer and
recording artist known for such international hits as Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With
Your Best Shot," Paul Carrack's "Don't
Shed A Tear," and hundreds of others
that have factored in the sales of some 30
million albums, has plenty of executive
experience, serving as a vice-president of
The Songwriters Association Of Canada
(S.A.C.) and sitting on the boards of The
Society Of Canadian Authors, Composers
and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN),
the Canadian Academy Of Recording Arts
And Sciences (CARAS), as well as the CSHF.
Schwartz, a graduate of Nashville's
prestigious Leadership Music program
and recipient of SOCAN's esteemed
William Harold Moon Award, said he
attended last year's CSHF gala inducting
Leonard Cohen and Gilles Vigneault
among others and experienced an
epiphany.
"It was a religious experience for me,"
declares Schwartz, who will serve concurrently as S.A.C. second vice-president.
"I didn't know some of those early
composers. I didn't know how much
internationally famous music Canadians
have written over the last century.
"It was a revelation."
Schwartz says the annual CSHF gala is
an amazing opportunity to honour
national Canadian pride and accomplishment -- and he views his role as raising the profile of both the show and
organization.
"I think my first task is to help
secure the future of the organization," says Schwartz. "It's not inexpensive to put on a show like that
once a year. Sponsorships are huge
and the support of the music industry and of businesses large and small
outside the music industry is also very
important.
"We don't have a secure financial
future at this point, so I think that's
my first task.
"The other thing is we still don't
have the exposure -- particularly in
Francophone Quebec -- that we need to
have. That's something that we're working
on so it becomes a truly national event.
"Those are the two immediate goals."
Schwartz says both the CSHF and the
gala present significant opportunities to
unite Canada through the universal languages of music and song.
"Because of its bilingual and bicultural
character, there's a leadership role that
the Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame
has taken in terms of the Pan-Canadian
experience and in terms of educational
and cultural opportunities, and reaching
out across our two solitudes," Schwartz
explains.
"There are so many places we can go
with that -- schools, musical institutions - and we can also develop a multi-media
resource out of this in the future. We're
building up libraries of interviews and
comments and musical performances, so
I think we'll look at ways of getting those
things out to people in the future."
Not surprisingly, Schwartz also feels
future editions of the CSHF Gala will
"bolster the music scene" and benefit
CSHF partners The S.A.C. and The
Canadian Music Publishers Association
(CMPA) as well as the Société professionnelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ).
"In terms of getting a real sense of
what we've achieved culturally, it's a
tremendous confidence boost to the creative community."
In the meantime, the CSHF has
announced January 28, 2007, as the date
of its 4th Annual Gala. Tickets for the
show, which will be held at the Toronto
Convention Centre, will go on sale in
early November, with prices, inductees
and performers still to be determined.
Founded in 1998 by noted publisher
Frank Davies, the CSHF is a national,
bilingual and apolitical non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Canada's
rich songwriting heritage.
The CSHF held its first annual gala in
2003, and to date has inducted 53 songs,
17 songwriters and eight Legacy Award
recipients.
Presenting your 2006/2007 S.A.C. Board
L-R: Dan Kershaw, Beverly Hardy, Haydain Neale, Shari Ulrich, Don Quarles, Sean Hosein, Lennie Gallant, Christopher Ward, John
Capek. Front Row: Stan Meissner, Marc Jordan, Bill Henderson, Eddie Schwartz (Missing: Lisa Dalbello and Erin Benjamin)
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 5
Should I Keep My Publishing?
By PAUL SANDERSON
S
hould you keep your own publishing? It depends on the
facts of each situation. While you do retain a larger percentage of the revenue generated from your music when
you hold on to all or a portion of your publishing, you will not
have a publisher's expertise in placing your material or developing your music and your talent and therefore not necessarily actually receive more revenue without a publisher.
For some songwriters, there is a time and a place that a publishing agreement may be advantageous. A publishing agreement may be entered into for example, for the purpose of
obtaining a publishing advance which may allow you to complete a record. Without such an advance, some
Songwriter/Artists never find a record deal and therefore generate no revenue from their music. There are many other reasons why you might want to give up all or a portion of your publishing, that is, enter in to a publishing or co-publishing contract with a publisher, the above noted reason is not the only
reason, nor it is necessarily the most definitive. You may also
choose, for example, to enter into an agreement with a publishing company, with or without a nominal advance against
royalties, with the expectation of getting a cover version of your
song. If the cover version does not happen within a reasonable
period of time from entering into the agreement, within
twelve, eighteen or twenty-four months, for example, you could
then contract to have the publishing rights revert to you.
Clearly, one should not “give up” one’s publishing for no compensation or consideration. Generally, you want to be reasonably compensated for your publishing rights and/or have some
means of getting them back after a period of time. It is important to note that a writer customarily never receives less than
the writers' share, that is 50% of net income, in any publishing
agreement.
6 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
What are the terms of some standard publishing agreements?
A publishing agreement might be structured on a 50/50 net
basis, which means that the writer would be entitled to the
writer’s share, that is 50% of the revenue and the publisher
would be entitled to the publisher’s share, that is 50% of the
revenue. This type of agreement is still referred to as a standard
songwriter- publisher agreement and under such an agreement
the copyright is owned by the publisher. In a typical co-publishing agreement, which is the more common agreement
these days, the writer/co-publisher retains half of the copyrights and half of the publisher’s share, that is 25% of the publisher’s share of revenue, plus the writer’s share, that is 50% of
the revenue, for a total of 75% of the revenue. The other copublisher is entitled to 25 % of the revenue and obtains half of
the copyrights.
The timing of the decision whether to enter into a publishing
agreement is also important and is subject to the facts of each
case. A songwriter may enter into a publishing agreement after
their music has gained some value. For example, the songwriter
may have achieved critical acclaim or released records which
have achieved gold or platinum sales status and thereby the
value of their publishing catalogue has increased. This certainly places the songwriter in a more favourable negotiating position. The decision to enter into a publishing agreement will
depend upon the specific set of circumstances and in every
case, skilled legal advice should be obtained prior to making
such decision and prior entering into any publishing agreement.
Roxanne Rolls! BEATING THE SOPHOMORE SLUMP
By NICK KREWEN
You've built a significant buzz with your
first album and your producer suggests asking a few high profile guests to lend a hand
with your second effort.
To your great surprise, they say all yes.
Their names: John Hiatt, Daniel Lanois and
Bruce Cockburn.
No wonder Roxanne Potvin is still pinching herself whenever she listens to the playback of The Way It Feels, the Colin Lindenproduced album that boasts Hiatt singing
background on the buoyant chorus of "A
Love That's Simple;" Lanois adding his own
voice to the folksy Francophone charm of
"La Merveille" and Cockburn's tasteful, jazzy
guitar solo weaving its way through "While I
Wait For You."
"It's more than a compliment," proclaims
Potvin, an intoxicating summer presence in a
pink-and-white summer dress and stylishly
cropped hair.
"I was just blown away that those guys
would agree to work with me on some of my
songs. I have a hard time talking about it
because I can barely believe it myself.
"Those are obviously musicians who know
their craft so well and have been around so
long and they are admired -- worshiped -- by so
many people, including myself, that it's kind
of hard to believe. At the same time I feel it's
almost too good to be true. Like, why me?"
Why not her? As Potvin amply proves
throughout The Way It Feels, she possesses the
pipes to launch small sailing vessels across a
bay by sheer lung power alone. And while
she's not yet a master of her Telecaster, her
musical chops are earnest, dedicated and
definitely heading towards ascertaining an
identifiable sound of her own.
The Regina-born daughter of a CBC journalist is the first to admit she's still on the
prowl for a definitive sound, even to the
point of worrying that some of the directions
she's explored on The Way It Feels are moving
away from the solid blues credentials she
established on her 2003 independent album
Careless Loving.
"That was a really scary thing for me," says
Potvin candidly between sips of soup at a
downtown Toronto cafe.
"When I started thinking about this album
I knew that I wanted to stretch out beyond
blues. I had to take myself out of the box and
go, 'Okay, so what are people going to think?'
PHOTO: ANDREW McNAUGHTON
S
o you're a relatively
unknown but promising young blues
belter from Gatineau,
Quebec.
"I was entering unknown territory. I had
never done anything other than blues. But I
trusted my gut feeling."
On The Way It Feels -- which offers eight
Potvin originals and four covers -- the
apprentice submits her muse to the slight
country feel of the ballad "Hurting Child;"
the aforementioned folk texture of "La
Merveille;" the nostalgic ragtime throwback
of "Sweet Thoughts Of You" and the ballsy
rock 'n roll shuffle "Caught Up."
Each is soulful, and although the blues is
often and ably anchored by the potent "A
Love That's Simple" and the solo piano serenade of "Don't Pay Attention," Potvin says
she's been castigated in some circles for her
choices.
"I've been criticized for not really having
'my sound,'" she says nonchalantly. "But you
know what? This is my process. This is how
I'm finding out what my sound is.
"This album is where I was at the time and
that's okay with me, because I couldn't have
done anything else. The next one will be different."
While the anchor of this project may be
modern day blues, there is also an old-time
feel that reveals the singer and songwriter's
Dinah Washington and Freddie King influences.
"It's more like an obsession," she chuckles.
"Ninety-five percent of the music I listen to
was recorded prior to 1965. It's been like that
for over 10 years now -- I just can't help it!
"That influence always creeps up because
that's so much of what I listen to: old blues,
jazz, rock 'n roll, country, bluegrass, Latin
music -- just give me anything old. I'm a
junkie that way.
"At the same time though, I need to
express myself musically and not just copy
whatever was done before. So I'm trying to
express myself in a contemporary setting."
However. it wasn't Washington or King
that set Potvin on her career path: It was
someone much younger...and hunkier.
"Jonny Lang opened the door," reveals
Potvin, almost timidly.
"There was a guy who was making music
that was completely different from what
everybody else my age was doing at the time,
so that drew me in. He was also really cute
and he sang really well. I was 15, so he was my
God!"
While Jonny made Roxanne Potvin excel
on the guitar, The Beatles awakened the
songwriter within.
"I was obsessed with the Beatles," Potvin
admits. "I got my very first guitar when I was
14, a classical acoustic guitar to noodle
around on. I wanted to learn how to play
Beatles songs and sing them."
Surprisingly, Potvin's songwriting methodology rarely begins with melody.
"What I do almost every time is write the
lyrics first," explains Potvin, who sometimes
relies on a portable MP3 recorder to capture
her ideas.
"Usually I'll read off a section or a verse.
With the words there's a rhythm and the
melody will flow. I'll look at it and just sing it,
then figure it out on guitar and build it
around that.
"I always feel that when the words are written, the song is basically written, you just
have to wrench it out of the words."
Speaking of words, "La Merveille" is the
first French language song that Potvin has
written and she's hoping to do many more in
the future.
"When I write in French, I tend to be a little more poetic, probably because my vocabulary is a little better," she admits. "I haven't
written as many French songs as I would like,
mainly because I was so influenced by
English music that it just felt more natural to
write.
"But I consider being bilingual a blessing."
Currently Potvin is attempting to create
songs about topics outside her personal
experience.
"At first it was just easier to write about
me, because me is what I knew best," she
laughs. "Now I'm trying to go further and
play with words a little more: Not so straightahead like a diary but make it a little more
poetic.
"I just want to get to the core of what I'm
expressing musically and write great songs
eventually that really mean something and
touch people."
If that's the way Roxanne Potvin feels, you
know she'll get there.
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 7
By NICK KREWEN
I
s there anything more exhilarating than throwing caution to
the wind?
Not in Nelly Furtado's world.
Driven by big, booming Timbaland
beats that thunder in your temples and shake you
down to your socks, Loose is Furtado uninhibited: an album
designed to let the body lead while the mind follows.
Bold, brash and sexy, Furtado's third effort flaunts its sense
of freedom through insidious, irresistible urban R&B and
dance grooves that coalesce the carnal with the carnivale and
parties the night away with its festive celebration of independence.
"It's a definite change," acknowledges Furtado, interrupting
up a morning of mothering her two-year-old daughter Nevis
to squeeze in an interview. "It's me just making a conscious
decision to really let go of over-thinking and just do whatever
was fun, spew it out and make a bunch of tracks that were
really reflective of some of my earlier influences."
It was a destination, however, that the Victoria, B.C.-born
songwriter admits took a while to reach.
"I had already recorded in Los Angeles (The Chill Building),
Toronto (The Orange Lounge) and London, England (Home
Recording) with different producers: Nellee Hooper, Track
And Field (the Toronto tandem of Gerald Eaton and Brian
West), Lester Mendez (the Juanes duet "Te Busque") and Rick
Nowels (the pop ballad "In God's Hands").
"In Miami I'd worked with Pharrell (Williams) and Scott
Storch, although that didn't make the album. From all these
producers, I learned a
lot about writing and
production, as well as
about feel and attitude towards life."
Ultimately,
her
search led back to a
collaborator who had
previously paired her
with rapper Missy Elliott
for a remix of "Get Ur
Freak On" and one
who offered his
own spin on a
scintillating Whoa,
Nelly! remix of "Turn
Off The Light:" influential Norfolk, Virginia
producer Tim "Timbaland"
Mosley (Busta Rhymes,
Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z).
"Tim and I hooked up and
we were just going to do
four songs," Furtado
reveals. "We ended up
doing ten songs because
we had so much fun
and we were on
the same page. I
had already
recorded
about 20 or 30 tracks before I hooked up with
Tim. Then when I started with Tim, it felt so magical
and so unique that I just kept with it."
Furtado says their destiny to complete Loose together
was sealed by an unusual incident at the Miami Hit Factory
studio where they were in the midst of recording the singer's
recent U.K. chart-topper, "Maneater."
"The first day we
started jamming with
a bunch of people in
the room, the music
was real loud -- plus11 I call it -- and we
were burning this
intense vibe, almost
like a voodoo energy.
"Then we smelled
smoke and a flame
shot out of the speaker because the volume
was so loud it had
burnt the rubber!" she
laughs. "We'd never
seen anything like it. It
felt significant."
No wonder Furtado
felt so enthusiastic:
The ten tracks produced
and programmed by
Timbaland and his
right-hand man, Nate
"Danga" Hills, are intricate, exceptional and
sonically innovative.
"Timbaland is all
about interwoven
melodies," Furtado
concurs. " His beats are really three-dimensional -- like
Surroundsound -- because he has one beat going while he's got
a counter beat going and a bunch of melodies in the background. That's the thing that's making your body move when
you listen to a Timbaland beat: It's really rich. It's really lush. He's
like a sound archeologist -- he digs into CDs and he finds sounds
and he tweaks them -- he's always searching for the next sonic
interest and to put your ear in a place it's never been before.
"We mixed the album as we went along so the energy of
the song would retain the energy of the jam. We kept a lot of
that warmth and I'm really happy, because I really think the
album sonically sounds different and that's important to me."
Also undoubtedly helping to seal the deal was Timbaland's
knack for cutting to the chase musically.
"Timbaland has such a low attention span that if he's not
feeling it, he just walks out of the room," laughs Furtado, 28.
"So if you don't come up with something that's catchy and
sounds good to him right away, he's already moved on to the
next beat.
"I love that because I have a low attention span, too, so
we're a perfect match. I have so many thoughts coming into
my brain at lightning speed that it's like ping-pong. I love to
be challenged in the studio, and I felt that I had to impress
8 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
PHOTOS COURTESY: MUCHMUSIC
Tim, step up my game and show everybody what I got."
Furtado felt she had something to prove. After the megamillion-selling Whoa, Nelly! had introduced the multilingual
Grammy-and-Juno-winning West Coast warbler to the global
masses through the soaring "I'm Like A Bird" and the crossover
appeal of "Turn Off The Light," her second album Folklore -packed with such gripping sing-a-longs as "Powerless (Say
What You Want)," the forceful "Explode" and the rousing soccer anthem "Força" -- faltered at retail.
But the album was no less important to its creator. Recorded
while she was five months pregnant, Folklore -- which still
racked up an impressive million-plus units in
North America alone -was,
in
Furtado's
words, "real intimate
and really from the
heart."
"I was feeling really
vulnerable," she admits.
"It was a special time in
my life."
The arrival of Nevis
and Furtado's adjustment to motherhood
ultimately laid the
groundwork for Loose.
"Having a child was
big-time, because all of
a sudden, it's not really
about you anymore,
you know," she concedes. "You have a
child and all of a sudden you feel this overwhelming, universal
love that leaves you
really vulnerable. And
vulnerability -- ka-ching!
-- wins you the songwriting lottery.
"After I had Nevis, I felt more sensitive."
There were other changes that fueled Furtado creatively,
including self-honesty, self-forgiveness and a startling candour
that parenting unearthed from within.
"When you're a Mom, there's no time for indecision and
sometimes no room for politeness," says Furtado. "Your child is
throwing soup at you in the restaurant and you need to clean
it up with a napkin. You need that napkin now, you know?"
She laughs.
"There's not as much time for niceties. I think the new truth
I have with people is more like the honest me. As a person
you've got to really stay true to yourself and do what you
want. From trying to please yourself and being more assertive,
the music is that more assertive. I think that's what the major
change might be.
"It's also only been in the past two years that I've started
really being open to making mistakes. Before I was really
obsessed with being perfect. And now, as part of letting my
fans into the other side of my life with this album, there's content I didn't have before: I talk about sex. I talk about relationships and love in a more candid way. I think it shows that
I'm real."
"Afraid," the leadoff song on Loose, is one such admission.
Behind the jutting hip-shaking rhythms and floating synthesizers is a message about insecurity, wrapped in the rap-andchorus refrain of "So afraid of what people might say" that
builds to an exciting acapella crescendo.
"I wrote the chorus to 'Afraid' in my hotel room and the
verses in the studio," says Furtado. "It's about that inner thing
where we always want to be the person receiving the standing ovation from the crowd, but our inner fear prevents us
from going for it.
"'Afraid' reminds me of that 14-year-old teenager in the hallway of my high school by my locker. I was always concerned
about what people thought about me, being self-conscious,
something that every young person goes through."
Furtado discovered her newfound confidence in part
through her daughter.
"Nevis is so spontaneous that she doesn't think twice about
what people are going to think, so I got more into that place
in my mind," Furtado explains.
"I decided I was going to make an R&B and club album just
because I felt like it."
Early indications conclude that the effervescent Furtado
made the smart choice, as receptive mainstream pop and
crossover audiences have readily embraced her sassy and sizzling Timbaland duet "Promiscuous" by placing it at No. 1 on
Billboard's Hot 100, concurrent with the album's release, for
six straight weeks.
The sentiment is echoed in the U.K., where that territory's
single -- the relentless romp "Maneater" -- sat atop their retail
charts upon its debut. For those keeping count, that's two
chart-topping singles making an impressive splash as Loose
cannon-balled to the top of the Billboard 200 retail album
chart its first week out, sparking sales of 250,000 units.
Furtado began writing songs half her lifetime ago, initially
influenced by pioneering female rappers,
crossover artists like
Salt-N-Pepa, TLC, YoYo, MC Lyte and
Queen Latifah — and
representing the men
— innovators Ice-T.,
KRS-One, L.L. Cool J.,
The Pharcyde and Del
Tha Funkee Homosapien.
"For awhile I even wrote
rhymes, a 14-year-old
girl in my bedroom," she says.
That appreciation also extended itself to the soulful harmonies of
BoyzIIMen, New Edition
and Hi-Five. By the time
Mariah Carey had entered
the picture, Furtado had
added melody to the
equation.
"When I first started
writing songs, I wrote
lyrics and melodies
that were very
Mariah Careyesque," she
explains.
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 9
PHOTO: ALBUM COVER COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL MUSIC OF CANADA
"It was very R&B-oriented and that's all I would do day and
night."
Mastering the art of reading and writing music allowed her
to channel spontaneity.
"A lyric and melody would always come to me at the same
time," she admits. "So I would write it all down on a couple of
sheets of paper from start to finish -- including the bridge, prechorus, chorus -- and I would always make my parents buy
whatever gadget was out, like a Casio keyboard with a builtin scratch effect -- and I'd produce it in my room."
Driven by her love of urban music, Furtado says she began
her career in hip-hop and graduated to trip-hop.
"I would spend late nights hanging out with my trance DJ
friend in Victoria," she recalls. "We would get out all the keyboards and drum machines and have a live techno-jam for a
couple of hours with three or four friends.
"It was part of my musical hard drive, you know? I always
loved singing over beats. Beats always inspired me."
Meeting Track And Field's Gerald Eaton and Brian West
brought forth her R&B chops, and by the time she'd recorded
Whoa, Nelly! Furtado had also absorbed the music of
Radiohead, The Verve and other "serious songwriter" rock 'n
roll philosophers.
The multilingual aspect of her writing -- something that she
flexes in Loose with her Spanish renditions of the joyful reggaeton-influenced "No Hay Igual" and the tender Juanes duet
"Te Busque" -- is second nature.
"The first language I ever sang in was Portuguese," Furtado
asserts. "When I was four years old, I did a duet with my Mom
about her and her people and it was Portuguese, so Latin languages are close to my heart.
"I speak really straight Mexican Spanish that I learned in
school as a teenager, but I didn't realize I could also sing in
Spanish until Juanes invited me to record the song 'Fotografia'
with him (on Juanes' 2001 album Un Día Normal.)
"Singing in Spanish, again, I don't have to think about it -- in
particular my Spanish rap on the album. When I perform that,
it doesn't get any better for me, cause I'm rapping -- and I'm
rapping in a Latin language, which just feels liberating and
really easy.
"A lot of this album's like that: All the best things come out
of not thinking," she laughs.
The impulsiveness suits her even to the point of distraction.
"(Coldplay's) Chris Martin had come in and written part of
the chorus and another little B-section of 'All Good Things
(Come To An End’)," recalls Furtado of the Loose sessions.
"It was up to me to write the verses a couple days later
because he had already left. Some Cuban musicians had come
in to play on this other song, and while I listened to one play
guitar I wrote the lyrics to 'All Good Things.'
"I just have to be in a nice flow and state of mind to write
lyrics and feel inspired.
"A lot of times I write lyrics off the top of my head and they
come attached to a melody, like 'Say It Right:' The melody just
kind of came to me as I was grabbing the microphone, freestyling and jamming in the tracking room instead of the vocal
booth.
"We would just put everything on the speakers, and we
would write in the tracking room. We'd use vocal effects and
record after midnight, so you'd get like a spooky mood going,
and a lot of the lyrics would come from that place."
Listening to songs like the electronic jungle rhythms of
"Afraid;" the pounding rock of "Maneater;" the chock block
beats of "Promiscuous" and the molten, cutting grooves of
"Glow," it's evident that there's another stimulus playing a central role in the realization of Loose: the tanned torso haven of
Miami, Florida.
"I just love the vibe in Miami," Furtado agrees. "Everybody's
so happy in the sunshine. People are barely wearing any
clothes. I love speaking Spanish there and I love turning on
the radio and hearing reggaeton.
"In South Beach alone there's a nice and warm vibe."
Furtado said that the good vibes filtered into the studio.
"In The Hit Factory in Miami, because there is so much going
on, it's all about all the rappers coming by looking for beats,
sometimes with briefcases full of cash," she laughs.
"It's very, very different for a girl from Victoria. It was a lot
of fun."
Feeling rightfully victorious with Loose, Nelly Furtado
feels that motherhood has allowed her to reclaim some
artistic license while Miami and Timbaland have opened
new horizons.
"There's something about
being around my daughter
that has brought me back
to writing songs from an
innocent, naive place,"
Furtado explains. "I
think that's a precious gift because it's
hard to get that
back once you've
been in this business for a little bit
and get kind of
jaded.
"Now I've opened
up as an artist, I
could write songs all
day. You always want
to write a song better
than your last one."
That's all Nelly needs -another excuse to cut loose.
PHOTO COURTESY: MUCHMUSIC
10 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
FACTOR OPENS
RESOURCE CENTRE
RESTRUCTURES FUNDING PROGRAMS
offstage or through downloads and any
combination of those will qualify you having
FACTOR-recognized distribution."
In terms of digital sales, Ostertag says
Heather Ostertag
T
he newly renamed Foundation
Assisting Canadian Talent On
Recordings (FACTOR), which has
granted over $112 million in funding to
assist developing homegrown talent and the
domestic independent music industry since
its inception 24 years ago, has undergone
some changes.
As of July 1, the number of programs
available for funding has been reduced
from 22 to 12. However, according to
Heather Ostertag, FACTOR president and
CEO, that doesn't mean her organization is
offering any fewer subsidies: they're just
modifying the process.
"We're offering the same support, but
what we've done is streamlined and stopped
the insanity," Ostertag explains. "We've had
far too many programs which has resulted
in confusion. So now we have one sound
recording program and you apply depending on the criteria you need: either you're
getting an independent recording loan or a
FACTOR recording loan."
Ostertag says while the newly simplified
process means applicants will fill out fewer
forms, there are some other significant
changes to the program.
"Our approach to distribution is probably
the biggest change that we've made," notes
Ostertag, a member of the Order Of Canada
who was promoted by the FACTOR Board in
June to add the CEO designation to her title.
"We're always tweaking our programs, but
distribution has been an anchor for determining what funding you could get.
"On the distribution side, we're now recognizing a number of options for having
FACTOR-recognized distribution. You've
got your bricks-and-mortar-type distribution
agreement with a distribution company or a
major label; you can have sold 2000 units
FACTOR will treat "three downloaded
tracks as the equivalent of an album sale."
"We have really opened it up to embrace
technology," she declares.
FACTOR has also increased the flexibility
and range of its marketing and promotion
programs.
"In the past, you could use funding for
very traditional marketing: putting your
press kit together, getting it distributed to
radio and possibly hiring a radio tracker,"
says Ostertag. "Now it's going to expand to
include showcasing, a tour or you could be
putting a video together."
Fund allocation is still subject to eligibility:
for example, you must sell 2000 copies of
your album in order to qualify for a minimum video funding of $12,000.
By NICK KREWEN
"You can use that basic marketing money
for whatever approach you want to try to get
your project launched."
Another big change: Although certain
program floors and ceilings have been readjusted to reflect realistic economics, in most
programs FACTOR will fund up to 75 per
cent of your proposed budget, an increase
from the previous 50 per cent maximum.
"Our new agreement with Canadian
Heritage is allowing us to afford that level of
support," says Ostertag. "We've been lobbying for this probably since 1990. It's been a
long time coming."
In the meantime, the payback terms from
the loans remain extremely reasonable.
"It's $.50 per unit or $.05 per download
to the point where we would be 100 per
cent recouped," says Ostertag. "Or for two
years following the domestic release we get
repaid on all units sold worldwide. At the
end of the two years we close the file and
walk away from any outstanding money."
Aside from financial career assistance,
there's an additional incentive to stop in at
FACTOR's Toronto headquarters in during
regular business hours: the FACTOR
Resource Centre.
Visitors will have access to a computer as well
as numerous trade magazines such as Billboard
and other industry-related directories.
"FACTOR staff came up with the concept," says Ostertag. "It's a place for people
to come in and find out where to go next."
Since its 1982 inception, FACTOR supported recordings have sold over 30.2 million copies worldwide with a retail value of
more than $680 million.
For more program info, including downloadable application forms, deadlines and
contact information, visit the FACTOR
website at www.factor.ca.
HUMBER SONGWRITING WORKSHOP
COOLER THAN BASEBALL FANTASY CAMP
U
nited in our desire to write better songs, approximately 60
songwriters with wildly varying
musical styles and backgrounds gathered this past June at the Humber
Songwriting Workshop.
It’s an incredibly intense and supportive environment that fosters creativity,
collaboration, and confidence. The fac-
ulty members, all awesome songwriters,
were approachable, caring and devoted
teachers whose extraordinary rapport
helped put everyone else at ease and
gave the workshop a casual, friendly and
very amusing feel.
The Humber Songwriting Workshop is
way cooler than baseball fantasy camp
and there are no itchy uniforms or dan-
By LEAH ERBE
gerous high-speed projectiles: Instead,
we put aside our day-to-day lives for one
week and became full-time songwriters.
Students spent half the day in small
workshops led by a faculty member and
the other half attending panels with special guests from all corners of the music
business. After a full day’s activities, students retreated to the lounge -- for what
cont’d on page 15
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 11
rewen
K
k
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i
By N
DeYoung, presented by The S.A.C. earlier this year at
Canada Music Week, decided to try his hand at composing a
musical after recording a Broadway album for Atlantic
Records called 10 On Broadway and playing Pontius Pilate
in a revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical
Jesus Christ Superstar.
"I played Pontius Pilate for six months, sitting there crucifying every night of the week, and I started to think,
'I'd like to write one of these rather than schlep out on
the stage," he explains. "So I sat down and wrote The
Hunchback."
So far, a full production of The Hunchback Of
Notre Dame has only been staged once -- back in
1997 for a limited run at the Tennessee Performing
Arts Center -- and shortly before DeYoung became
inflicted with a rare disease that made him lightsensitive and forced him to take a two-year hiatus.
But he says The Hunchback could be returning to the public eye in the next few years.
"In the last six months I have had four
offers to do it," reveals DeYoung. "But I
A
et:
haven't decided what the next best step is.
y
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12 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
PHOTOS: JOAN MARCUS
John. You have been spoiled by the fact that you are a law onto
yourself: What you create is yours and nobody can damn well tell you
what to do.
"But in theatre, you maybe have to work with the book writer and
definitely work with a director, a producer, a choreographer, and a
writing guy and they all have input. Everyone has their own fiefdom, as
I like to put it. When you work in a musical, there will be a lot of opinions. As a writer of the music you have to learn patience. You have to
learn to listen to find out what you don't know."
THE IDEA
So where do you start? For the creators of The Drowsy
Chaperone, a tale about a coddled Broadway starlet who wants to
what the song needs to be and who is going to be singing it. It's very
structural. We work from often a title."
They also work from a book, or libretto, which in the case of The
Drowsy Chaperone, billed as "A Musical Within A Comedy," was eventually co-written by Bob Martin with Don McKellar.
THE BOOK
"For those people who don't understand what a book is, it's a theatrical term, a screenplay, like in a movie — what the actors are saying
and how it changes," explains Hunchback's Dennis DeYoung.
Usually constructed to include two acts separated by an intermission, DeYoung adds one other undeniable fact about musicals.
"The book will change," he promises. "And when the book changes
as it inevitably will, a song
that made sense will sometimes no longer make sense.
Then the song must be
scrapped or the lyrical content
changed, because the characters will change and their
motivations will change.
"Even a simple thing like
changing time and place in
one moment of the show can
change the syntax of lyrics
later on."
THE WORKSHOP
The next step is the workshop, the litmus test for the
performance of both the
book and the music and integral for snagging potential
producer and investor interest.
"What you do in a workshop, where people imagine
everything, is perform the
give up her career for marriage, it began before Bob Martin -- who
plays The Man In Chair -- walked down the aisle with fellow Second
City comedian Janet Van De Graaff (who, incidentally, is also the
name of a character in the musical.)
"Initially there was no Man In Chair," recalls Chaperone's Lambert.
"We were premiering a mini-musical - a first draft. The theme of the
musical we were doing was a wedding theme, because we had always
wanted to do something that was a 1920s-style thing, but the show
itself was a musical that got premiered at a bachelor party and the
proceeds that we made from that helped with the wedding.
"It was just 40 minutes of a 1920s pastiche musical with no explanation, except that everybody in the audience knew who had written
the musical so they kind of knew where we were coming from."
Inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films and the 1932
Maurice Chevalier/Jeannette MacDonald musical romance Love Me
Tonight, Lambert says she and Morrison had a number of archetypes
in mind for Chaperone development.
"We had all these archetypes that we knew and we began selecting, 'We need this character and this character and this character and
so on,' and then we started giving them each songs and working out
the plot," Lambert explains. "This all happens kind of around the same
time: little snippets of plot, little snippets of dialogue and working
around each of the characters and what they'd sing, then filling in the
blanks.
"It almost feels like you're working on a puzzle backwards. But a lot
of it had to do with our performers that we wanted to work with and
what we knew they'd be playing."
When it comes to individual songs, Greg Morrison says it all comes
down to careful planning.
"You picture the concept of the song first," he says. "You sort out a
function and work from a concept of how the song's going to work,
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 13
story, sing 'em a song, and allow people to envision the rest," says
DeYoung. "It is a living, moving thing. Sets have to move. People have
to move. Lights have to change."
But the workshop fulfils another function that is much more critical
for the composers.
"It isn't until you see these things in action, no matter how you visualize
them, that you understand what it is that you need and what you don't
need," DeYoung explains. "Musical theatre is the most difficult artform in
entertainment, because it has story, dancing, fighting, acting -- all in real
time.
"There is nothing more difficult than the musical theatre: that's why
there are so few good ones. It's really very difficult to pull these
things off."
THE PRODUCTION
PHOTOS: JOAN MARCUS
The most important thing about staging a production is finding
people who share your vision, says Chaperone's Morrison.
"You build a community," he explains. "You connect with other people by producing the show, you find other like-minded people: singers
and writers and musicians and people who are really interested in the
same thing so you have that at least to share with, because that's such
a huge part of it."
Ideally, producers and backers with big wallets and grand ambition
will covet your musical. But Lisa Lambert says economics need not be
a restriction -- reminding us that before The Drowsy Chaperone hit
Broadway, it evolved through runs at Toronto's Fringe Theatre,
Theatre Passe Muraille and Mirvish Productions' Wintergarden
Theatre.
"We used to work at the Rivoli and Big City Improv (small clubs in
Toronto) and at the smaller room at the Tim Sims Playhouse and
Second City," Lambert recalls. "You can literally produce something for
very little, work scenes, call the press and get them out and get all
your people to come out and see it."
OTHER IMPORTANT TIPS
1) THINK SMALL
"When we were working on this show, a Broadway production was
not an issue off the top," remembers Lambert. "We worked incrementally. Whatever production we were working on was usually
something that was attainable."
2) FOCUS AND DEFINE YOUR CONCEPT
"It's all about focusing," says Lambert. "Focus the concept until you
have a title that you can just zero in on it. Because the song is this specific thing -- You have to be that focused with your concept."
3) BE PATIENT
On average, a musical takes seven years from gestation to completion -- and that's before it consistently sees the stage.
"Be prepared for the long haul," says DeYoung. "It took The Color
Purple, which was a pretty big motion picture, 17 years to become a
musical. I think the gestation on these things is minimally seven years
- it's more like 10 to 12 years.
"I started to write a second one, and then I started thinking, 'Okay,
I'll be 104 when..."
"Because how else is he going to earn any money? They want to
put their stamp on the work. They're going to come in and say, 'I think
Quasimodo should have a pink Mohawk.'
"Yes, somebody told me that."
For the record, DeYoung cut two numbers from The Hunchback Of
Notre Dame and since the initial workshop, has added five more.
Lambert says eight songs "have come and gone" leading to The
Drowsy Chaperone's current 13-song score.
5) GET IT SEEN
4) FLEXIBILITY IS THE KEY
"Be prepared to change your work to suit the needs of others, some
of whom you'll think are certifiably insane," advises DeYoung. "But you
have to understand what it is that you are doing: you are getting into
an artistic process that relies on the kindness of strangers.
"People are always reworking and reinventing and changing things
with Broadway musicals. This is my firm belief: If you had the most
perfect book and musical score finished, whoever comes in to direct is
going to change it. I guarantee it.
14 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
Lambert and Morrison insist that previewing your work-in-progress
to an audience is crucial.
"When you get it out in front of people, it informs you so much,"
note Morrison. "And working in comedy, the most essential element
is the audience and how it's landing. You really do need that, often
when you're doing your own writing."
Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison and Dennis DeYoung: three people
who really know the score when it comes to writing musicals.
he Drowsy Chaperone may be the greatest purely Canadian suc-
Tcess story to hit Broadway, but it wasn't the first.
In 1967, the radical musical Hair put Montreal's Galt
MacDermot on the global musical theatre map. Written from
a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado with the
score provided by MacDermot, the musical about the hippie
movement in the '60s was a smash success, logging over 3900
performances in New York and London before closing in
1973.
Hair won MacDermot a Grammy in 1968 for Best
Score For An Original Cast Album and yielded four
huge hits (Three Dog Night's "Easy To Be Hard;"
Oliver's "Good Morning Starshine;" The Cowsills'
gold "Hair;" and the million-selling Grammywinning 1969 Record Of The Year,
"Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" by The 5th
Dimension, which spent six weeks at No. 1 atop
the Billboard Hot 100.)
But according to MacDermot, who had won
two Grammies in 1961 for his "African Waltz,"
it was only because he was interested in rock 'n
roll that he took on the assignment.
"I had been involved with the theatre a little
bit in Canada. I did a show called My Fur Lady
back in my McGill days," recalls MacDermot, 77,
from his Staten Island home.
"I played in a few operas when I was in the
orchestra, but when I came to New York I was totally
involved in doing rock 'n roll demo records for publishers. Rock 'n roll was all that I was interested in at the
time. So probably if it hadn't been Hair, I wouldn't have done
it."
Rado and Ragni provided the lyrics, and MacDermot estimates it took him three weeks to complete the music.
"I've always written shows in about three weeks," he states.
"You may add some stuff later, but you get the basic thing
pretty quick."
MacDermot says he has to be inspired by the lyric to
make it work.
"You have to hear something," MacDermot explains.
"Writing songs is not hard: Either you do it or you don't. If I
hadn't liked the lyrics and hadn't heard anything right away,
I would have said, 'I can't do it.' But the lyrics were very nice –
I thought they were clever – and also hip.
"What I do is I read the lyric and usually a tune gets into my
head. But with Hair, I specifically wanted a certain style,
but that was more or less the style I was interested in
anyway at the time. We use the word 'rock 'n roll,'
but it's really a rhythm and blues idiom -- flat 7ths
and flat 3rds -- the bluesy type of thing. So I
pushed for that a little bit more than I might
have with something else."
Hair also required minimal revision.
"The only change was when they brought
me 'Aquarius,' which they had sort of discovered in the New York Times, the news about
'The Age of Aquarius," MacDermot recalls.
"I thought they wanted a spacey, far-out
thing, so I tried that but I didn't really like it as
a song, nor did they. I thought I could do better, so I rewrote that tune."
In 1979, Milos Forman adapted Hair into a
movie and in the '90s, the musical was revived to
the point where it's still being performed all
around the world today.
Hair wasn't MacDermot's last foray into musicals: In
1972 he followed it up with the Tony-winning Two
Gentlemen Of Verona, which ran for 18 months and garnered
MacDermot a 1972 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Music...and he's still writing them.
"Lately I've been writing a thing called The Tinderbox which is
an old Hans Christian Andersen folk tale, or nursery rhyme,
that's set in Iraq," says MacDermot.
"That could be controversial."
HUMBER SONGWRITING WORKSHOP
else – more music. Jams, performances and recording sessions often lasted well until the early hours.
Seminars and panels gave us clear information and straight
answers about the business of music. Also covered were different ways to get our music out to the world and some alternatives to “the big record deal;" from Molly Johnson’s experiences coordinating huge charity benefit concerts to music
supervisor Chris Robinson’s guide to the business of placing
songs in TV shows or ads.
In addition, guest singer/songwriters Ron Sexsmith,
Danny Michel and Bob Snider came by to discuss their experiences and perform several of their songs, giving us a fascinating look at their career paths and writing processes.
One of the major lessons of the week was that we each needed to develop our own unique voice and self-understanding,
so that our songs could make a clear point honestly and without resorting to clichés. From there we tackled the constant
By
Kr Nic
ew k
en
HAIR REVISITED: MAGIC FROM MONTREAL'S MUSICAL MAESTRO
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
challenge of making our point quickly and memorably.
Here are a few words of wisdom as heard in workshops,
panels and in the hallways:
“You know the term ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus?’ I think that’s
appropriate here.”
“You have to re-examine every word in every line to be sure that
it’s supporting and furthering your message.”
“That chorus needs to be bigger!”
“Get rid of those 'just' words – those words that are just there just
to fill up space. They’re just weakening your point.”
“Cut that intro in half, and get to your chorus sooner.”
At the end of that week everyone left with a renewed sense of
purpose and faith in their abilities. I can’t wait for next year to
see how the returning students have used this new knowledge.
Meanwhile, I’ll be hard at work on my own songs, cutting
the slack, strengthening the message and making my chorus
so big it’s visible from space.
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 15
Welcome New Members!
The S.A.C. welcomes the following new members who have joined since April, 2006
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Classifieds
Each S.A.C. member is entitled to one free classified per year.
Additional ads may be purchased for $25 per 25 words. Contact
us at 1-866-456-7664 or [email protected]
Songwriter with over 85 songs, excellent commercial
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16 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
SAUKRATES: GIVING THE RAP ON
PUBLISHING
ulti-faceted Scarborough rap pioneer
Amani "Saukrates" Wailoo knows the
role of survivor only too well. A charter member of The Circle, the Toronto hiphop collective that also introduced
Choclair, Kardinal Offishall and Jully Black
to the masses back in the mid-90s,
Saukrates has taken his innovative T-Dot
sounds from "Father Time" to international
ears, recording such influential albums as
The Underground Tapes and producing
tracks for worldwide faves Nelly Furtado
and Wu-Tang Clansmen Method Man and
Redman.
Nor has he ignored the home front, cofounding Capitol Hill Music with Chase
Parsons and building a three-act label roster that includes his solo artistry, Andreena
Mills, and the super collective known as Big
Black Lincoln that includes Ro-Dolla,
Brassmunk's Ajile, IRS' T.R.A.C.K.S. and
Big Sox himself.
In celebration of the recent Sony BMG-distributed Capitol Hill Music release of Big
Black Lincoln's Heaven's Caught On Fire,
S.A.C. president Haydain Neale caught up
with Saukrates to get the 4-1-1 on the
Canadian urban music publishing scene.
M
HAYDAIN NEALE: Can you talk a bit about
ghost writing -- writing rhymes for other
rap artists with no official credit -- in hiphop?
SAUKRATES: You know, ghost writing was
frowned upon in the rap game. It's
always been happening in the R&B
world, but in the rap game as an MC,
everyone figures what you're rapping is
yours. That's just the culture of hip-hop.
HN: Is the hip-hop lyricist writer becoming more legitimate as a co-writer or a
total writer for another artist?
SAUKRATES: Big time! Will Smith's rap success and his return is owed to a couple of
great writers -- Nas and Sauce Money -combined with his marketability and his
self-marketing, which is a great thing
that he's done. Of course, in rap, dudes
are gonna call you out if you're not spitting your own rhymes and you're on
more of that street feel.
HN: Like the pop, R&B and country
worlds, you can now be become a successful writer without having to exclusively record your own material. Is the
method of pitching publishers for cuts
similar in hip-hop?
SAUKRATES: I was actually surprised to get a
lot of e-mail lists of groups coming out,
especially out of the U.S. who have been
rapping for eight years successfully, and they're connected. These boys will get
they're looking for full songs. On this list their publishing deals if they want 'em.
that you get, if you're privileged to it, These songwriters are 19 and 20 years
your publisher will send you a five-page old... their attitude is incredible, they're
list of artists around the world who are not in a rush, they're eager to learn and
looking for tracks. Some of these people able to take some leadership.
you would figure were doing their shit all Some kids approach me and they want
by themselves and they're looking for full leadership but their attitude is in the
songs with "with hooks and verses" menwrong place. Or they have to work a little
tioned in brackets.
harder to get their writing and producHN: Are you currently signed to a pub- tion skills up to be creative, cause it is a
lisher?
creative job. It's not just "I can be there
SAUKRATES: Yeah, I've been with Warner on time"... You have to shine. But can
Chappell since 1998.
you shine on cue? Five, four, three, two,
HN: Now what are the instances of one... SHINE TIME! [laughs]
Canadian publishers in
general picking up hip- PHOTO: STEVE CARTY
hop writers, urban writers
since then? Is that growing or is that the exception and not the rule?
SAUKRATES: No, no. It's not
growing at all. I think
when we got in there,
there was definitely something going on in Toronto
that had a lot of North
America starting to pay
attention. We had a strong
connection with AnneMarie Smith who was
working with Warner
Chappell at the time.
Four of us got picked up
over at Warner Chappell
at the same time... myself,
Jully Black, Kardinal
Offishall and Glenn
Lewis. Since then I
haven't seen too many
people come through
them Warner Chappell
walls from the same angle.
HN: Do you think it's coming around again? Or is
the pool of talent not
what it was?
SAUKRATES: What we had when we got our HN: You have committed to educating
opportunities was somewhat of an infra- youth about the industry through your
structure, an older energy, a more expe- work with the S.A.C. this year through
rienced energy around us. We were various workshops and seminars. What's
artists, but around us, folks had assumed your vision for impacting these kids?
their positions as management or publicity, so we could respond to what was SAUKRATES: Out of 100, two or three of
being asked of us by the labels and pub- them will have their head in the stars,
lishers. And now our experience has but 20 to 30 of them you can touch in a
been able to help some of the younger different way. They would want to fill in
cats. In the next year or two year, it'll other gaps in the industry, which is hugely
happen. It won't be just because of the needed to build an infrastructure here in
talent and experience, but because Canada.
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 17
METALWORKS HOSTS SASS
SONGWRITING ADVENTURE
ustin Gray, Damnhait Doyle,
Stan Meissner and Haydain
Neale were the mentors for
one dozen talented student songwriters at the premiere School
Alliance Of Student Songwriters
(SASS)/ Metalworks Songwriting
Adventure held for four days in
April.
Sponsored in part by the S.A.C.,
the RBC Foundation, Melodyman
Productions, SOCAN, SongU.com
and Masterwriter software and
spearheaded by Don Quarles and
The Mississauga-based Metalworks
Institute's Craig Titus, the event
enabled the students to co-write and
record 12 songs with their mentors.
Co-founded by songwriter and
schoolteacher Artemis Chartier and
ex-Guess Who member, producer
and songwriter Dale Russell, SASS is
a Durham Region-based not-forprofit organization designed to
bring songwriting into Canadian elementary and secondary schools.
So far 50 schools in Durham
J
18 Songwriters Magazine SUMMER 2006
Region, Guelph, Peterborough and
Vancouver -- the latter thanks to the
efforts of British Columbia SASS
representative Don McLeod -- have
enrolled in the program, including
one post-secondary participant,
Trent University.
The 12 students who attended this
session -- Sarah Nadeau, A.J.
Ottaway, Laila Darwish, Joey
MacDonald, Lindsay Broughton,
Tony Ranalli, Samara Van Leeuwen,
Ian Lennox, Lindsay Regan, Tafari
Davis (Durham Region); Braedon
Quarles (York Region) and Sonny
Parmish (New Westminster. B.C.) -were selected from a field of 1500 in
recognition of their excellent songwriting skills, and each received an
S.A.C. membership at the conclusion of the event.
Not only was the “Songwriting
Adventure” event a grand success,
but organizers have already been
discussing plans for multiple sequels
for 2006-2007!
SPOTLIGHT
Dustin Bentall
Colleen Ecclestone
BBN No. 49 , APRIL 24, GRACE
MEMORIAL CHURCH, VANCOUVER
Veda Hille
Ida Nilsen
Rowland
Salley
Ron Hynes - Shari Ulrich
Ron Hynes
PHOTOS BY DALE LEUNG
BBN No. 101 , May 6, HUGH’S ROOM, TORONTO
PHOTOS: PIERRE MILLETTE
Bobby
Cameron
David
Gillis
Garry
Jackson
Greg Hobbs
Lori
Cullen
Nelly Shin
L-R: Andy Stochansky, Greg Hobbs, Nelly Shin, Lori
Cullen, David Gillis, Garry Jackson, Bobby Cameron
Andy Stochansky
SUMMER 2006 Songwriters Magazine 19