Songcraft: Spotlight on Songwriters

Jon Foreman is the front man and primary songwriter for the spiritually-minded alternative rock band Switchfoot. The group has released nine studio albums, including 2003’s The Beautiful Letdown, which sold more than two and a half million copies, earning it double platinum status. Their last six albums have hit the Top 20 on the Billboard 200 Album chart, with five of them going to #1 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart. With RIAA certified Gold selling singles “Meant to Live,” “Dare You to Move,” and “Stars,” Switchfoot has won 14 Dove Awards, including Artist of the Year, which they took home in 2005. They won a Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in 2010 for their Hello Hurricane LP. Foreman has released two albums with Nickel Creek’s Sean Watkins under the name Fiction Family, as well as two thematic series of critically acclaimed solo EPs. His songs have been covered by Mandy Moore, Taylor Swift, Mutemath, Meatloaf, Amy Grant, and others. In 2001 Foreman was honored with the Les Paul Horizon Award as the most promising up-and-coming guitarist at the annual Gibson Guitar Awards in Los Angeles. He is an avid surfer and a contributor to the Huffington Post, where he blogs about life, music, and culture.

In 1995, Billboard magazine listed the Top 20 countrysongs of the previous 35 years. Bill Anderson wrote four of those20 songs, and has continued writing them ever since, becoming theonly country songwriter to land a Top 40 hit in seven consecutivedecades. After signing with the Decca label in 1959, Andersonreleased 37 records as an artist that reached the Top 10 onBillboard’s Country singles chart - eight of which climbedto the #1 position. Though wildly successful as a performer, Billis also a prolific songwriter who penned most of his own hits,including the classics “Po Folks,” “Mama Sang a Song,” “8 X 10,”and “Still,” which was named Billboard magazine’s Song ofthe Year in 1963. His initial songwriting success began in 1958when Ray Price took “City Lights” to the top of the charts for 13weeks. The song became a standard that charted repeatedly in the1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Similarly, his “Tips of My Fingers,”reached the Top 10 four different times with versions recorded byRoy Clark, Eddy Arnold, Steve Wariner, and Anderson himself. Billteamed with Roger Miller to co-write “When Two Worlds Collide,”which was a hit for Miller in 1961, Jim Reeves in 1969, and JerryLee Lewis in 1980. Other major hits from Bill Anderson’s vastcatalog include Lefty Frizzell’s “Saginaw, Michigan,” ConnieSmith’s “Once a Day,” and Porter Wagoner’s “Cold Hard Facts ofLife.” After a hiatus, Anderson returned to songwriting in the1990s, co-writing hits including Vince Gill’s “Which Bridge toCross (Which Bridge to Burn)," Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss’s CMASong of the Year “Whiskey Lullaby,” and George Strait’s CMA and ACMSong of the Year “Give It Away.” Bill was elected to the NashvilleSongwriters Hall of Fame in 1975, and inducted into the CountryMusic Hall of Fame in 2001. He has received multiple Grammynominations and more than 50 BMI performance awards. Anderson wasnamed BMI Country Songwriter of the Year six times, and was thefirst country writer ever honored with the prestigious BMI Iconaward in 2002. The Academy of Country Music similarly recognizedhim with their inaugural Poets Award in 2008. His autobiography,Whisperin' Bill Anderson: An Unprecedented Life in CountryMusic, will be released by the University of Georgia Press inSeptember, and is now available for pre-order atBillAnderson.com. 

After finding early success with international pop acts such as Milli Vanilli, the German-born hitmaker Toby Gad went on to write and produce a string of international #1 singles, including Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy,” Selena Gomez’s “A Year Without Rain,” and Nicole Scherzinger’s “Don’t Hold Your Breath.” He has twice been the recipient of the prestigious ASCAP Song of the Year award, first in 2008 for Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and again in 2015 for John Legend’s “All of Me.” Toby’s contributions to officially certified Gold and Platinum album releases alone represent sales of more than 73 million units worldwide. Other artists who’ve recorded his songs include Ricky Martin, Miley Cyrus, Donna Summer, Brandy, Jordan Sparks, Robin Thicke, Alicia Keys, Demi Lovato, Jazmine Sullivan, Jessie J, One Direction, Kelly Clarkson, Carly Rae Jepson, Leona Lewis, and Madonna. 

Beginning his career as a key player in the UK folk revival of the early 1960s, Donovan scored early hits with “Catch the Wind” and “Colours.” Embracing jazz, world music, and psychedelic influences, he expanded his sound and found success with the major hits “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow” in 1966. Additional hits followed, including the Top 20 US singles “Epistle to Dippy” and “There is a Mountain,” as well as the Top 10 hits “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Atlantis.” He has recorded nearly thirty albums. Donovan’s songs have been recorded by Neil Young, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Richie Havens, Van Dyke Parks, Jefferson Airplane, the Animals, the Allman Brothers Band, Cher, Eartha Kitt, Glen Campbell, Johnny Rivers, Duane Eddy, Buck Owens, Chet Atkins, Kenny Loggins, Susanna Hoffs, Joan Jett, Sarah McLachlan, Richard Thompson, and many others. He was awarded the prestigious BMI Icon award in 2009, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.

Shelly Peiken is a multi-platinum songwriter best known for co-writing Christina Aguilera’s #1 hits “What a Girl Wants” and “Come On Over Baby (All I Want is You).” She was nominated for a Best Rock Song Grammy for penning “Bitch” with Meredith Brooks, who took the song to #2 on the Billboard pop chart in 1997. Additionally, she’s penned songs such as “I Wanna Be With You” for Mandy Moore and “Out From Under” by Britney Spears. Celine Dion has recorded four of Shelly’s songs, while Miley Cyrus, NSYNC, David Archuleta, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Plain White T’s and Gladys Knight have each recorded two or more songs from the Peiken catalog. Others who have covered Shelly’s music include Jessie J, the Divinyls, the Pretenders, Reba McEntire, Lisa Loeb, Jennifer Lopez, Expose, Aaliyah, Backstreet Boys, Vanessa Hudgens, Smash Mouth, INXS, Keith Urban, Michelle Branch, Natasha Bedingfield, and the cast of the hit TV show, Glee. Shelly is a regular blogger for the Huffington Post and has recently released her first book, Confessions of a Serial Songwriter. 

After serving in World War II, Irving Burgie attended Juilliard where he studied classical voice. He eventually fell in love with folk music, and landed a steady gig as a Calypso singer at a Caribbean-themed Chicago nightclub in the early 1950s. Returning to New York, he became known as Lord Burgess on the Greenwich Village folk scene. He contributed eight songs to Harry Belafonte’s Calypso album in 1956, which became the first million selling LP in any genre, and spent an astounding 31 weeks at #1 on the Billboard pop chart. Burgie went on to write the majority of Belafonte’s hit albums Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean in 1957 and Jump Up Calypso in 1961. In total, he wrote more than thirty songs for Belafonte, including the hit singles “Jamaica Farewell,” “Day-O,” “Don’t Ever Love Me,” “Cocoanut Woman,” and “Island in the Sun.” Thanks to his strong reputation for popularizing island music, Burgie wrote the National Anthem of Barbados in 1966. In addition to Harry Belafonte, other artists who’ve tapped the Irving Burgie catalog include Sam Cooke, Julio Iglesias, Taj Mahal, The Kinks, Jimmy Buffett, Marty Robbins, Don Williams, Arlo Guthrie, The Righteous Brothers, Tom Rush, Carly Simon, Chubby Checker, and Patti Page. “Day-O” continues to live on, and, in more recent years, has been sampled by Jason Derulo in “I Don’t Wanna Go Home," and by Lil’ Wayne in “Six Foot, Seven Foot.” Burgie was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.   

Two-time Grammy nominee Billy Mann released a couple of solo albums as an artist via A&M Records in the mid-1990s before finding success as a songwriter in the European market. He eventually returned to the US and began getting his songs recorded by artists such as Celine Dion, Dakota Moon, and Daryl Hall & Joan Oates, who made “Do It For Love” Billy’s first #1 Billboard single as a songwriter in 2002. Other artists who charted with Billy’s songs in this era include Michael Bolton, Art Garfunkel, and Jim Brickman. He soon began finding hits with a new wave of pop stars, beginning with Jessica Simpson’s Top 20 single, “With You.” Around the same time he became a frequent collaborator with Pink, who has included many of Billy’s compositions on her albums, including “God is a DJ,” “Stupid Girls,” "Dear Mr. President," "I'm Not Dead," "Glitter in the Air.,” and "The Truth About Love." Additionally, Mann co-wrote and produced Teddy Geiger’s platinum selling single “For You I Will (Confidence).” He has worked with a variety of artists, including Cher, Sting, John Legend, Kelly Rowland, Ricky Martin, Backstreet Boys, Martina McBride, Allen Stone, Josh Groban, and others. In addition to his efforts as a songwriter and producer, Mann is a respected music executive. After forming his own Stealth Entertainment, he went on to become a President at both EMI and BMG Rights Management. He is currently Chairman and CEO of Green & Bloom/Topline, a hybrid record label and publishing company. He balances his business activities with his own creative efforts and philanthropic initiatives, which he calls the pursuit of "the hit life" over the hit song.

Though the father/daughter songwriting duo of Randy and Maia Sharp found their greatest collaborative success with the Dixie Chicks' recording of "Home" in 2002, they've enjoyed diverse songwriting careers, working both together and separately. Randy released his first independent album as a singer/songwriter in 1973, eventually finding chart success as a writer for other artists, including Jennifer Warnes, Marty Robbins, and Glen Campbell. Thirteen of his songs have reached Billboard’s Top 40 country chart, a half dozen of which hit the Top 10. He wrote the #1 hits “(Why Does It Have to Be) Wrong or Right” and “Tender Lie” for Restless Heart, as well as a string of hits for Exile, including “Nobody’s Talkin’” and “Yet.” He continued to write hit songs in the mid to late 1990s, such as “You Will” for Patty Loveless, “The Cheap Seats” for Alabama, and “Then What” for Clay Walker. In 2005 Emmylou Harris won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for Randy’s song “The Connection.” Additionally, his music has been recorded by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers, Kelly Clarkson, Edgar Winter, and Blood, Sweat & Tears. His most recent album, I Won’t Let Go, was released in 2015. Following in her father’s footsteps, Maia Sharp has released six albums as a solo artist, earning a reputation as a skilled instrumentalist, singer, and highly respected “songwriter’s songwriter.” Her songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, Kim Richey, Amanda Marshall, Paul Carrack, David Wilcox, Lisa Loeb, Edwin McCain, Trisha Yearwood, Cher, Keb’ Mo’, Art Garfunkel, and Bonnie Raitt, who included three of Maia’s songs on her Souls Alike album, including the single “I Don’t Want Anything to Change.” Maia’s own version of the song can be found on her recently released studio album The Dash Between the Dates.

Best known for singing a string of successful trucking-themed country songs in the 1960s and 70s, Red Simpson was also a highly influential behind-the-scenes songwriter from Bakersfield, California. Buck Owens recorded more than 30 Simpson originals, including the Top 10 hits “Gonna Have Love,” “Sam’s Place,” and “Kansas City Song.” Additionally, Red penned perennial standards, such as “Close Up the Honky Tonks” and “You Don’t Have Very Far to Go.” As an artist, he released a total of seven albums for Capitol and logged seven charting singles onBillboard’s country rankings, including the Top 40 hits “Roll Truck Roll” and “The Highway Patrol.” He is perhaps best known, however, for singing “I’m a Truck,” which hit the Top 5 in 1972. Simpson played guitar on most of Buck Owens’ recording dates in the mid-1960s, including sessions that produced hits such as “Buckaroo” and “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line.” He went on to play numerous sessions with Merle Haggard, who referred to Simpson as a “hillbilly hippy.” Merle recorded a couple of Simpson originals on his 1969 album Pride in What I Am, and Red went on to play guitar on Haggard’s classic live LP, Okie From Muskogee. A half dozen other Simpson compositions have been recorded by Haggard, who wrote “A Bar in Bakersfield” in tribute to his old friend. As a songwriter, Simpson enjoyed additional charting singles by Charlie Walker, Wynn Stewart, Junior Brown, and others. His songs have also been recorded by Ferlin Husky, Johnny Paycheck, Wanda Jackson, The Byrds, Gram Parsons, Dave Dudley, Roy Clark, Roseanne Cash, Steve Wariner, Lucinda Williams, Alan Jackson, Candi Staton, Dwight Yoakam, and many more. Simpson died on January 8, 2016. This is the final in-depth interview with the California country mainstay Bob Dylan once called "the forgotten man of the Bakersfield Sound."

Mike Stoller has written more than 60 songs that have appeared on the Billboard charts, including the #1 hits “Hound Dog,” “Kansas City,” “Yakety Yak,”  “Searchin’,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Poison Ivy,” “Stand By Me,” “Young Blood,” “Don’t,” and “Ruby, Baby." After Stoller and songwriting partner Jerry Leiber found early R&B success with recordings by Little Esther, Charles Brown, Ray Charles, and Big Mama Thornton, Elvis Presley turned their song "Hound Dog" into a #1 single on the pop, R&B, and country charts in 1956. Elvis went on to record more than 20 Leiber and Stoller titles, including the hits "Love Me," "Loving You," "Jailhouse Rock," "Treat Me Nice," "She's Not You," and "Bossa Nova Baby." Mike and Jerry signed an independent production deal with Atlantic Records in the mid-1950s, where they wrote and produced a series of hits for several artists, including the Drifters' "There Goes My Baby," "Dance With Me," and "On Broadway." Additionally, the pair wrote and produced all the Coasters' singles, including "Young Blood," "Searchin'," "Charlie Brown," "Along Came Jones," and "Poison Ivy." Other highlights from the Leiber and Stoller songbook include "Love Potion No. 9," which was a hit for both the Clovers and the Searchers, and "Is That All There Is," which was a hit for Peggy Lee. Eleven different versions of their song “Stand By Me” appeared on the Billboard charts over the span of 50 years, with the original version by Ben E. King hitting the Top 10 in both 1961 and 1986. Smokey Joe's Cafe, which included 40 Leiber and Stoller songs, opened in 1995 and became the longest running musical revue in Broadway history. Stoller received the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award in 1991, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is a member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.