Songcraft: Spotlight on Songwriters

SUMMARY:Our guest on this episode of Songcraft is Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Steve Perry. Named one of Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of all Time,” Perry penned classic Journey songs such as “Any Way You Want It,” “Open Arms,” and “Don’t Stop Believin'” as well as solo hits such as “Oh Sherrie” and “Foolish Heart.” He joins us to chat about his approach to songwriting and his new holiday album The Season. PART ONE:Paul and Scott talk about Patreon and then get into the good stuff. Is "Die Hard" a Christmas movie or not? While people debate it, nobody seems to notice that virtually all songs about winter are considered Christmas songs even when they don't mention anything about Christmas at all. The guys hash out this phenomenon only because they like to stir the pot.PART TWO:Our in-depth conversation with the legendary Steve Perry.ABOUT STEVE PERRY:One of the most iconic voices in rock music history, Steve Perry is best known as the lead singer of the band Journey during the group’s most successful period. His first Top 20 pop hit as either a performer or songwriter was the solo-written “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” which became a hit for the band in 1979. In the following decade he co-wrote an unbelievable streak of classic songs with Neil Shon and Jonathan Cain, including “Any Way You Want It,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Open Arms,” “Separate Ways,” ”Send Her My Love,” and “Don’t Stop Believin',” a single that’s been certified five times platinum. His 1984 debut solo album Street Talk produced the classic singles “Oh Sherrie” and “Foolish Heart.” After penning additional Journey hits “Be Good to Yourself,” “Girl Can’t Help It,” and “I’ll be Alright Without You” he departed the band and released his second solo album, For the Love of Strange Medicine, featuring the single “You Better Wait.” After briefly reuniting with Journey and co-writing the additional hits “When You Love a Woman” and “Message of Love” in the mid-1990s, he stepped away from recording. Steve returned in 2018 with his third solo album, Traces, and has recently released his fourth solo record, a holiday collection called The Season, produced by Steve and Thom Flowers, and featuring contributions from multi-instrumentalist Dallas Kruse. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, whom Rolling Stone magazine named of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” joins us to talk about exploring the great American Christmas songbook from a writer’s perspective, to share some stories about his own songs, and to offer some insight into his approach to the craft.

SUMMARYOur guest on this episode of Songcraft is Bruce Cockburn. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s more than 50-year career has produced 34 albums, 22 of which have been certified Gold or Platinum in his home country. He has won 13 Juno Awards, and is a member of both the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Bruce joins us to chat about his career and his new 2-CD career-spanning compilation, entitled Greatest Hits: 1970-2020, which will be released on December 3rd. PART ONEScott and Paul chat about the nature of hall of fames, or is it halls of fame?PART TWOOur in-depth interview with Bruce CockburnABOUT BRUCE COCKBURNSinger-songwriter Bruce Cockburn blends folk, jazz, rock and world music influences into a unique blend that has earned him critical praise and near-mythic status in his Canadian homeland. He has won 13 Juno Awards, and has been inducted into both the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Cockburn is best known in the US for songs such as “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” “If a Tree Falls,” and “Pacing the Cage.” He has released 34 albums over the course of a more than 50-year career, 22 of which have been certified Gold or Platinum in Canada. He received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, which is the highest Canadian artistic honor. He holds more than a half dozen honorary doctorates for his musical contributions, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. Ranging from spiritual musings to political activism, his songs have been covered by Judy Collins, Dan Fogelberg, k.d. land, Jimmy Buffett, Barenaked Ladies, Jerry Garcia, and others. His new 2-CD career-spanning compilation, entitled Greatest Hits: 1970-2020, will be released on December 3rd. 

PART ONE: Scott and Paul talk about the phenomenon of greatest hits album. What does the term mean? When are they necessary? Which artists warrant them, which don't, and when are they woefully inadequate? PART TWO: Our in-depth interview with Ray Benson of Asleep at the WheelABOUT RAY BENSON:As the co-founder and only consistent member of the group Asleep at the Wheel, Ray Benson has carried the torch for Western Swing and other formative musical traditions that helped shape the country genre. The band has released over 30 albums, and landed more than 20 songs on Billboard’s Country Singles Chart. Additionally, Benson has released two solo albums, and a duet album with fellow Texas legend Dale Watson. As a producer, he has worked with Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Brad Paisley, Vince Gill, Merle Haggard, and others.Ray has earned thirty Grammy nominations, winning nine of them over the course of four decades. He was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame, is in the Austin Music Hall of Fame, received the Texas Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and earned the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance. In short, this long tall Texan is a living legend. 

SUMMARYOur guest on this episode of Songcraft is Yola. The acclaimed British singer and songwriter has released two albums on Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label, both of which were produced by the Black Keys’ frontman. She was nominated for four Grammy awards for 2019, including Best New Artist, and is a sometime collaborator with the supergroup The Highwomen alongside Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Marren Morris, and Amanda Shires. Yola joins us to chat about her life as a songwriter and artist. PART ONEPaul and Scott discuss the history of the Best New Artist Grammy category, including a few surprising tidbits of trivia.PART TWO Our in-depth interview with YolaABOUT YOLASinger-songwriter Yola made a major splash at the 2020 Grammy ceremony with four nominations: Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for her composition “Faraway Look,” and Best New Artist in the general category alongside Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and Billie Eilish. Dubbed by many as a "country soul singer," the British artist’s breakthrough came when she teamed up with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach in Nashville to write and record her debut solo album, Walk Through Fire, on which she and Auerbach collaborated with a roster of Southern soul songwriters including Dan Penn and Memphis studio legend Bobby Wood. She was subsequently nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year and Album of the Year at the 2019 Americana Music Honors & Awards. Though Yola’s emergence might have seemed like an overnight success to some, she’d been working in music in the UK as a vocalist and collaborator with DJs and producers, including Massive Attack. In 2009 she was a writer on “Hopes and Fears,” a single by UK singer Will Young, and in 2013 she co-wrote the Top 10 UK hit “Turn Back Time” by Sub Focus, on which she also sang an uncredited vocal. Additionally, Yola sang lead on the Top 5 UK pop hit “Won’t Look Back” by Duke Dumont. In the wake of her success with the Walk Through Fire album, Yola reteamed with Auerbach for her most recent release, Stand For Myself, featuring highlights such as “Diamond Studded Shoes” and “Dancing Away in Tears.” Her accolades continue, having won Artist of the Year honors at the 2020 UK Americana Awards and earning a 2021 nomination from the CMA for the International Achievement Award. Earlier this month she played a sold out show with Chris Stapleton at Madison Square Garden. 

SUMMARYOur guest on this episode of Songcraft is Justin Gray, a songwriter, record producer, and music executive whose projects have sold in excess of 40 million copies, and earned more than eight billion streams worldwide. He’ll join us in a bit to talk about his day-to-day life as a songwriter-producer who has worked with Avril Lavigne, Mariah Carey, Glen Campbell, John Legend, and many others. PART ONEScott and Paul welcome Darrin Pfeiffer for a conversation about drumming, songwriting, and more. Darrin is a fabulous drummer (formerly of Goldfinger), the host of the Dangerous Darrin Show podcast, Scott's neighbor, and a heck of a nice guy. PART TWOOur in-depth interview with Justin GrayABOUT JUSTIN GRAYJustin Gray is a Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter, record producer, music executive and tech entrepreneur. His various projects have sold in excess of 40 million copies, and earned more than eight billion streams worldwide. He has collaborated with a diverse range of artists including Avril Lavigne, Mariah Carey, John Legend, Luis Fonsi, Joss Stone, Glen Campbell, and many others. He has scored several #1 hits around the globe, including one of China’s biggest hits of 2020 with Universal Music artist Sunnee. His extensive film and TV work includes Toy Story 4, Melissa McCarthy’s Life of The Party, Hannah Montana, Beverly Hills 90210, Modern Family, Lethal Weapon, Hawaii 5-0, and many others. He has been a guest speaker at Canadian Music Week and South by Southwest, and has been a lecturer for master classes in songwriting and production at Berklee College of Music, USC Thornton School of Music, and UCLA. 

SUMMARY:Our guest on this episode of Songcraft is genre-bending singer, songwriter, artist, and international sensation LP. She joins us to chat about everything from writing Rihanna’s double platinum Top 10 single “Cheers (Drink to That), to her own artist career which has yielded classics such as “Lost on You” (which reached #1 in 18 countries), to her much-anticipated upcoming sixth studio album, Churches.  PART ONE:Scott and Paul don't hold back on their feelings about Rolling Stone's recently revised "500 Greatest Songwriters of All Time" list. PART TWO:Our in-depth interview with LPABOUT LP:Born Laura Pergolizzi on Long Island, New York, the singer, songwriter, and artist now known as LP got her start with a pair of impressive independent album releases before landing a deal with Island Records. While that album was never completed, “Love Will Keep You Up All Night,” one of the songs she wrote for the project, was recorded by The Backstreet Boys on their Unbreakable album in 2007. Inspired to write for other artists, LP went on to have cuts such as “Shine Ya Light,” a Top 10 hit for Rita Ora in the UK, and “Cheers (Drink to That),” a Top 10 double platinum single for Rihanna in the US. The wide range of other artists who’ve recorded her songs includes Heidi Montag, Christina Aguilera, Jo Walsh, Leona Lewis, Cher, and Celine Dion. LP rediscovered the joy of writing songs for herself with “Into the Wild,” which was used in a Citibank commercial. She signed with Warner Bros. and recorded the Forever For Now album, which featured collaborations with writers such as Claude Kelly, Billy Steinberg, and Isabella Summers from Florence and the Machine. She moved on to Vagrant Records for the Lost on You album, with a title track that has garnered over 455 million listens on Spotify, over 750 million views on YouTube, and chart-topping status in nearly 20 countries. Truly an international sensation, LP continued to gain attention for songs such as “Girls Go Wild” from her Heart to Mouth album, and has already released a handful of songs, including “The One That You Love,” “How Low Can You Go,” and “One Last Time” from her forthcoming release, Churches, which will be available this December.  

SUMMARY:Our guest on this episode of Songcraft is musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer Van Dyke Parks. Best known for his work with Brian Wilson on The Beach Boys’ legendarily ill-fated Smile album, Parks has released a number of solo albums, scored several films, arranged countless sessions, and worked with a long list of artists, including The Byrds, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Little Feat, U2, Fiona Apple, Joana Newsom, and many others. PART ONE:Scott and Paul chat about why they're approaching this episode a little differently than usual, the saga of The Beach Boys' Smile, and why Paul should stop checking stuff out from the library. PART TWO:Our in-depth interview with the legendary Van Dyke ParksABOUT VAN DYKE PARKSVan Dyke Parks is one of the more unique American musicians, songwriters, arrangers, and record producers to emerge in the 1960s. Born in Mississippi, he attended the American Boychoir boarding school in Princeton, New Jersey, in his formative years. His first career was as a child actor, appearing on over 100 episodes of various TV shows, including his role as “the kid from downstairs” on The Honeymooners. He did theater and appeared in films, including The Swan with Grace Kelly and Alec Guinness, before going on to study music at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, where he briefly studied with Aaron Copland. In the early 1960s Van Dyke began playing acoustic guitar, and moved to the West Coast where he and his brother Carson performed on the coffee house circuit as a duo known as The Steeltown Two. He landed his first arranging job with “The Bare Necessities” for Disney’s The Jungle Book in 1963 before a brief stint as an MGM recording artist in the middle of the decade.  He is perhaps best known, however, for his collaborations with Brian Wilson with whom he worked as a lyricist on The Beach Boys’ ill-fated Smile album. The pair revisited their work with the release of Brian Wilson Presents Smile in 2004. Though the Smile recordings weren’t released at the time, Van Dyke signed with Warner Bros. Records and, in 1967, released his album Song Cycle, an ambitious debut that incorporated a wide range of traditional American musical influences with experimental recording techniques. He went on to produce the debut albums by Ry Cooder and Randy Newman, and took a job as an executive at Warner Bros. Records in the 1970s. He became enamored with calypso music in that era, releasing a couple of albums as an artist showcasing the genre, and producing The Esso Trinidad Steel Band. Toward the end of the decade he began composing film soundtracks before returning in the 1980s with two albums of original material, Jump!, which explored the Uncle Remus and Br’er Rabbit stories, and Tokyo Rose, which explored the intersection between Japanese and American culture in the context of a trade war. In the 1990s, he and Brian Wilson teamed up once again to release the album Orange Crate Art. His most recent full-length album as a solo artist is 2013’s Songs Cycled. The long list of musicians Van Dyke has worked with includes The Byrds, Tim Buckley, Harry Nilsson, Little Feat, Steve Young, Phil Ochs, Frank Zappa, Ringo Starr, U2, Fiona Apple, Joanna Newsom, Skrillex, and many others.  

Thanks for checking out this very special bonus episode. Today we’re pleased to feature a great podcast called Basic Folk, by sharing one of their episodes in our feed. Fellow members of the American Songwriter podcast network, Basic Folk is a unique show that features honest conversations with a variety of musicians. The proceedings are anchored by public radio host Cindy Howes and guest host, singer/songwriter Lizzie No. They bring the warmth, the humor, and most importantly, insightful questions to a genre that is often misunderstood. Their definition of “folk” is extremely broad, so they’ve featured interviews with people such as Tom Rush, Jonatha Brooke, and even some past Songcraft guests, including Lori McKenna, Bridget Kearney of Lake Street Dive, and Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls. The interview we’re sharing with you today features Cindy’s chat with Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers. The two-time Grammy nominees have released three studio albums, starting with the triple platinum self-titled debut which featured now-classic songs such as “Hey Ho” and “Stubborn Love.” Subsequent releases have featured Top 10 Billboard rock singles such as “Ophelia,” “Angela,” and “Gloria,” making The Lumineers one of the most popular artists in the folk-oriented Americana genre. We chose to feature this particular episode based on Wesley’s in-depth analysis of songwriting, including the first comparison we’ve ever heard on songwriting and playing golf as similar disciplines. Interesting interview, so check it out. Wesley Schultz. The Lumineers. Basic Folk. Good stuff!  

SUMMARY:Our guest on this episode of Songcraft is Rami Yacoub, one of the most influential Swedish songwriters and producers of the last two decades. He joins us in a few moments to talk about his career, from early Britney Spears classics such as “Baby One More Time,” to boy band hits such as One Direction’s “What Makes U Beautiful,” to recent smashes such as Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande’s double platinum chart topper “Rain on Me.”  PART ONE:Scott and Paul chat with Nashville-based songwriter Arlis Albritton (cuts by Jamey Johnson, Luke Bryan, and others) about the upcoming St. Augustine Songwriters Festival, which Arlis founded. PART TWO:The guys pay tribute to a few recently-departed music legends: The Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts, Don Everly, and the great Tom T. Hall, who was a guest on the 67th episode of Songcraft - a conversation that turned out to be his final interview. PART THREE:Our in-depth interview with hitmaker Rami Yacoub. ABOUT RAMI YACOUB:As a songwriter and producer, Rami Yacoub has been involved in some of the biggest pop hits of the last twenty years. Raised in Sweden by Palestinian parents, Rami’s first massive international hit was Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time,” which he co-produced with Max Martin. He and Martin went on to score additional hits with Spears, including “Oops…I Did it Again,” “Stronger,” and “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.” Additionally, he wrote and produced The Backstreet Boys’ Top 10 single “Shape of My Heart” and NSYNC’s “It’s Gonna Be Me,” which was the group’s only single to reach #1 on the Billboard pop chart. After co-writing P!nk’s “U + Ur Hand,” he found massive success writing and producing for One Direction, including the hit singles “What Makes U Beautiful,” “One Thing,” “Live While We’re Young,” and “Kiss You.” Additional hits Rami has written include “Starships” and “Pound the Alarm” by Nicki Minaj, “One Last Time” by Ariana Grande, “Unstable” by Justin Bieber, and the double platinum #1 hit “Rain on Me” for Lady Gaga, which was one of more than half a dozen songs he co-wrote for her critically acclaimed Chromatica album in 2020. The long list of artists who’ve recorded Rami’s songs includes Demi Lovato, Celine Dion, Carl Rae Jepson, 5 Seconds of Summer, Avicii, All Time Low, Selena Gomez, Jason DeRulo, and Madonna.  

SUMMARYOur guest on this episode of Songcraft is Poo Bear, who is known for his extensive collaborations with Justin Bieber, including the multi-platinum hits “Where Are U Now,” “What Do You Mean,” and “Despacito (Remix),” as well as for hits such as “Caught Up” by Usher, “I Can Transform Ya” by Chris Brown, and “10,000 Hours” by Dan + Shay. He joins us i to chat about his multi-platinum career as a behind the scenes writer, and his recent work as an artist. PART ONEScott and Paul chat about their elevator encounters with Ice Cube, Common, Kenny Loggins, Kelly Rowland, and Jermaine Jackson, and why random run-ins don't always result in amazing songwriting partnerships. PART TWOScott's in-depth interview with Jason "Poo Bear" BoydABOUT POO BEARSong of the Year Grammy nominee Poo Bear is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Justin Bieber, including the multi-platinum hits “All That Matters,” “Where Are U Now,” “What Do You Mean,” “Company,” “Yummy,” and “Intentions,” as well as “Despacito (Remix)” (with Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee) and “I Don’t Care” (with Ed Sheeran). Other hits from the Poo Bear songbook include “Anywhere” and “Peaches and Cream” by the R&B group 112, “Caught Up” by Usher, “My Petition” from Jill Scott’s Grammy-winning Beautifully Human album, Chris Brown’s “I Can Transform Ya” and “She Ain’t You,” and Dan + Shay’s “10,000 Hours.” His catalog has registered sales of over 350 million records worldwide, dozens of multi-platinum certifications, and 100 billion streams and counting. He has collaborated with The Rolling Stones, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, P!nk, Faith Evans, Dr. Dre, Lupe Fiasco, Drake, Snoop Dogg, Yo Gotti, Rick Ross, Skrillex, DJ Khaled, Mariah Carey, Billie Eilish, Steven Tyler, and many others.Not limited by any one genre, Poo Bear’s songwriting can be found on everything from J Balvin’s Latin Grammy award-winning Energía to Zac Brown Band’s #1 country album The Owl. As an artist, he co-founded the rootsy project Bear and a Banjo, which released a self-title debut in 2020 that was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Further stepping out from behind the scenes, Poo Bear’s most recent release is the single “The Day You Left.”