In Praise of a WORKING Writer

By almost any writer’s standards, Terry Teachout is having a very good year. 

To wit, in reverse order: Duke, his biography of Duke Ellington, was published October 17^th to generally great reviews.  The previous week, on October 11^th, The King’s Man, his third collaboration with composer Paul Moravec, premiered at the Kentucky Opera in Louisville. On September 18^th, Duke was included on the non-fiction long list for the National Book Award, a month before its official pub date. 

A sequence of events like this is what many a writer’s dreams are made of. This past spring wasn’t too shabby, either, with Satchmo at the Waldorf, the stage adaptation of his bio on Louis Armstrong, garnering two nominations and one win (for the lead actor) at the Connecticut Theatre Awards. And mind you, this was all produced in the midst of the deadlines required by his ‘day job’ as a critic.

Now, to be clear, I do not actually know Mr. Teachout, but I have known of him for quite some time. He first beeped onto my radar screen in the mid-90s when I was directing the marketing and press activities involved in introducing Berlin Classics, a then-new German classical label, to the American audience.  Teachout was on my monthly press and radio list, which numbered a few hundred at that time. (I wince to think of how few of those classical-format radio stations survive and how few of those press contacts are with publications that still feature professional – or, indeed, any – arts criticism.)

When my days with the label were over, I would occasionally see Teachout’s distinctive name pop up here and there, but he was off my radar until I read his lovely tribute to the irascible and charming lyricist Gene Lees (best known for Yesterday I Heard the Rain and Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), whom I’d known from one my first jobs in music publishing. Reading his column on Lee’s passing in the spring of 2010, I learned Teachout had made quite a leap and was now the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal.  Not long after that, I joined Twitter and his was one of the first accounts I followed. That’s when my real awareness of and admiration for him as a writer began. 

Over the course of 2011, I noticed the demanding travel schedule he kept, and then began to get a handle on the extra-curricular work he was producing.  That year we Twitter followers read of the premiere of his second opera, Danse Russe, and his work on adapting to theatrical form his acclaimed 2009 book Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, which would become Satchmo at the Waldorf. And at some point he announced that the Ellington biography was his next book.

In the spring of 2012, he shared on Twitter his elation at receiving a MacDowell Colony residency for the coming summer. (That was a happy note in an otherwise difficult spring, marked by the death of his beloved mother after a months-long illness.) We followers were able to track the breakthroughs he achieved on Duke at MacDowell, and when he returned to his real-life schedule, we were witness to his triumph at getting to the final draft later in the year, his delivery of the manuscript, his relief when his editor accepted it, his (muted) appreciation for the copy editor’s notes, and then, earlier this year, his unvarnished appreciation for the cover design and the work of the book designer. Somewhere in that mix, he also worked on the revision of the Satchmo play, which opened at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre in October, 2012.

This body of worked produced over a few years is substantial enough, but it becomes utterly astonishing when you realize that he has accomplished all this while carrying a work load that would have most people curled into a fetal position.  Teachout is perhaps the only drama critic in America who considers the entire country his beat, so he is not only covering New York theatre, but Chicago, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and regional theatres across the country.  In addition to his reviews, he also writes a weekly column for the WSJ, blogs regularly at his Arts Journal post, and keeps his hand in the music world with liner notes on the side.

Now, to the uninformed eye, a critic’s job seems like a walk in the park.  You get to watch/listen to stuff you like – for free! –and then all you have to do is write about it.  Having known a number of critics over the years (mostly music critics, of course, but a few film critics, an art critic, and even a television critic), I can tell you that whole for free! thing goes out the window when you see the foot-high pile of discs that comprise the assignment due tomorrow, or the slumped shoulders of a film critic heading off to his third film in two days, or a music critic trying to figure out how to cover three far-flung performances of a weekend. 

The fact that Mr. Teachout has been able to meet his deadlines and achieve all that he has with his own books and libretti is admirable enough, but doing it with the kind of soul-sapping travel schedule he maintains puts him in the ranks of cultural super-heroes as far as I’m concerned.

Amidst all this, he has done an enormous service to writers by sharing on Twitter the joy of writing on those days when the words and ideas just flow – sometimes like Niagara Falls, sometimes like a burbling creek – the days we all dream of.  But he’s also shared the frustration of those days when the words just don’t come. No matter how far you open the spigot, there’s not a drop. But the most indispensable thing I have learned from Mr. Teachout, especially when he tweets about his to-do list or the mountain of due dates he is facing of a week, is this: get the butt in the chair.  

In fact, that’s the greatest lesson writers can take away from any experienced writer:  Apply generous amounts of butt glue when necessary, but get the butt in the chair. 

I’ll be reading Duke later this week, or maybe early next. It’ll be my reward for meeting one of my own editing due dates. And when I go out to buy it, I’m also going to stop by my local art supply store to see how much they charge for the big containers of butt glue, because I’m going to need a lot in the coming weeks.  And I think I’ll write on the top of the container – in big Magic Marker letters – Teachout Success Formula. 

Thanks for the inspiration, Mr. T.

 Jeanne McCafferty is an editor, writer and book designer.  

You can see samples of her work and learn how to contact her at www.jeannemccafferty.com.  
She is on Twitter @IrishCabrini.

Conquering Hollywood

It’s been longer than I expected since the last post, but I’m thrilled to finally be able to share with you Gary W. Goldstein’s remarkable book Conquering Hollywood.

Gary is a Hollywood veteran, and at the top of his list of credits is Pretty Woman, which he produced almost 25 years ago.  He was a longtime manager of screenwriters, and his career-long (and probably life-long) focus has been how best to connect with people and how to help them connect with other people.

You can read on my website about the process Gary and I went through in developing this book, and he was very clear right from the beginning that this was a book focused on career, not craft, so if you’re looking for advice on how to write for film or television, you’ll have to choose from among the many volumes available on that topic.  

But if you’re looking for advice on how to succeed in writing for television or film, Conquering Hollywood is for you.  This is the down-to-earth, brass tacks kind of business advice so many of us wish we had had when we were starting out, whatever our careers. Gary somehow combines a primer in old-fashioned business courtesy with of-the-moment advice on managing social media activity and recognizing its impact on a career.  He walks his readers through the choices to be made, the focus and the discipline it takes to succeed in this competitive arena – and indeed in any career these days.

It’s available on Amazon in print, and for those of the eBook persuasion, there is also a Kindle version available with cool video inserts, so that qualifies it for ‘enhanced’ eBook status, I believe.  For those who love audio books, that’s also available, with Gary narrating each and every chapter.  I’m not really an audio book person, since I’m one of the lucky Angelenos who isn’t in the car very much, so I’ve only listened to the audio chapters in snippets.  But I can tell you that hearing Gary’s narration immediately snapped me back to the hours (and hours!) we spent sitting at the round table in my office as we finalized the text.  On tricky passages where we’d combined/cut/added/transmogrified, Gary’s last step before giving it his imprimatur was to read it aloud. His concern was always for clarity of communication, the practicability of his advice, and making sure that his readers were really receiving the benefit of his years of experience. I’m happy to tell you that integrity and concern shows on every page.

I highly recommend this book to any aspiring screenwriter, artist, or musician and the principles outlined in the book are perfectly applicable to aspirants in other walks of life.  If you do purchase Gary’s book, I’d love to hear from you.  And I’d love for you to leave a comment on the book’s Amazon page as well.  Thanks!

Where Does the Music Come From? Songwriters.

I thought I would have some more time before I had to resume my quest for getting some credit for songwriters on The Voice – but I see news tidbits that they are back in production, so here we go.  

For those new to the quest: back in May, I posted about the surprising tendency of some of the music professionals on The Voice to elide the creation of a song with the performance of a song.  (That first post is here: http://bit.ly/1cV7ugE.) I was obliged to revisit the topic in June, when music legends Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton were ignored in extensive conversations about their songs Crazy and I Will Always Love You, with credit (and seeming ownership) given over entirely to artists who had recorded their songs. (That second post is here: http://bit.ly/11ObUyr.)

In the intervening weeks, I’ve connected with a few people in the music business, and acquainted myself with some of the other issues affecting the music field.  A June speech from songwriter Paul Williams (president of ASCAP) made me aware of the copyright challenges that affect all artists/creators, from independents on YouTube to behemoths like Disney.  And there have been more than a few news stories on the apparently woefully low payment rate to songwriters by the online streaming music service Spotify.  

But while both of those aspects are important, they are the music equivalent of inside-baseball stories.  What I’m talking about is music literacy, not dumbing down the music-buying public – and at the very least, not misleading them about who the creators are behind the music they love. In our digital age, somehow the names of songwriters have become detached from their creations, and if you don’t have a CD in hand, it takes a little digging to find out the songwriters responsible for that new song you can’t get out of your head. 

I’ve singled out The Voice because of the way they approach the latter half of their season, when the coaches start working with the artists, speaking to them (and to the camera, thus directly to the audience) about song selection. It’s in these segments where I noticed the disconcerting tendency to incorrectly attribute songs – sometimes hilariously so in Blake Shelton’s case. But the show does edit together interesting and engaging behind-the-scenes footage and at some point they give the Twitter name for the artist via a Chyron in the lower right corner of the screen.  What I’m suggesting to the producers is that in these rehearsal sequences, they also put up a Chyron with the title of the song and the names of the songwriters.  Wouldn’t that be something?  

The other reason I’ve singled out The Voice, frankly, is that it’s a ratings juggernaut for NBC; the show is consistently at the top throughout their season, and at Number One in the later weeks.  The opportunity to have the names of the songwriters appear on the screens of some 20 million + viewers all at the same time fills me with a ridiculous kind of joy. 

A bit of personal testimony: I’ve been working for some time on an historical novel, much of which is set in the 1920s.  As part of my early research, I contacted the lovely folks at the Billboard Charts Department who sent me the Top 10 (or 12 or 14) lists for that decade (the hit counts varied back then). I was surprised when scanning the pages how many songs I knew; I think anyone who has an appreciation for the Great American Songbook would have a similar experience. But I recognized only a handful of singers, and those were the titans whose work crossed the decades: Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Bessie Smith, and Eddie Cantor. But the songs endure: St. Louis Blues (W. C. Handy) from 1920, My Man (music by Maurice Yvain, English lyrics by Channing Pollock) from 1922, California, Here I Come (Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Meyer) from 1924, Tea for Two (Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar) from 1925, Always (Irving Berlin) from 1926, Ol’ Man River (Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II) from 1928, Am I Blue? (Harry Akst and Grant Clarke) from 1929, and many, many others.

The last part of my personal testimony: the illustration that appears above is a WordCloud made from a mostly off-the-top of my head list of songwriters whose work I’ve loved–some of my personal favorites, I guess you could say, although I'm sure I'll realize I've left out a name or two. Chances are, if you were born after 1985 or so, many if not most of these names will be unfamiliar to you, which proves my point in a way.  I may have to do a WordCloud of some of their song titles next.

Jeanne McCafferty is an editor, writer and book designer.  You can see samples of her work and learn how to contact her at www.jeannemccafferty.com. 
She is on Twitter @IrishCabrini.

Even I can't get an agent

This wonderful post from Ken Levine is tough to read, but important for writers to know.  Bravo, sir.

Even I can't get an agent

Tilting at Windmills: The Voice and The Songwriters

Early this week, Josh Marshall (‏@joshtpm) Tweeted this: How does @Carole_King only have 19k followers? No respect for great songwriting? Please, people.  I replied: Sadly, in the age of iTunes nobody knows who writes the songs. No liner notes, no credits>musical illiteracy.

For those not familiar with my first blog post on this topic (http://bit.ly/10Blcib), I’m tilting at a few windmills trying to get some acknowledgement of the contribution songwriters make to the success of a show like The Voice. Yes, the talent this year is outstanding. Yes, the coaches are fascinating to observe. And yes, the production level is permanently set to full-on spectacle. But at the heart of the show is the music, and that’s where some acknowledgement is due to the songwriters.

After my initial rant a month ago, I planned on keeping my lip zipped. That was quite hard after the June 3 episode, when the show’s pervasive habit of crediting the song by the artist managed to stomp on a legend. Amber Carrington told her coach Adam Levine that her song choice was Crazy by Patsy Cline. No, actually, Amber. You can’t sing Patsy Cline’s Crazy because Patsy Cline already sang her version.  You can, however, sing Willie Nelson’s Crazy, because that’s the song he wrote. 

There were a few instances that same evening where coaches neglected to mention the fact that artists were co-writers on songs they had introduced. Usher had a particularly odd reference to Taylor Swift, a co-writer of I Knew You Were Trouble, which was about to be performed by his artist Michelle Chamuel. “It’s like the final sign of approval,” he said, “when the artist who actually sang the song gives you the go-ahead.” Actually it’s more Taylor Swift the writer who has an investment in the song being performed (and selling) well. 

But my pique reached a new peak during the June 10 show, when Sasha Allen sang I Will Always Love You, best known from its appearance in the 1992 film The Bodyguard and the best-selling single by Whitney Houston. The song was always and only identified on the show as Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. But I Will Always Love You is a Dolly Parton original and she first hit No. 1 on the country charts with it in 1974 and then hit No. 1 again in 1982. We’re talking Dolly Parton, folks, another music legend.

While I can excuse the young contestants of thinking the world began when they were born, I am more than a little shocked at the professionals not providing more of a musical context for these young artists, nor for distinguishing between performance of a song and creation of a song. Maybe it’s a language problem. In the age of downloads, when we don’t have an actual thing to hold in our hand, maybe it’s harder for people to say ‘that Carrie Underwood record’ when there’s not a record in sight. 

But without those records or discs and the liner notes and song listings and credits that came with them, there is a kind of musical illiteracy developing, and the producers of shows like this – along with the record companies and music publishers – have an obligation to make the public aware of what goes into the creation of a musical recording. Producers. Arrangers. Songwriters. Artists. And frankly, I’m also a little shocked that ASCAP and BMI, the performing rights societies, haven’t stepped up and tried to get some more recognition for their members. 

My suggestion, just to dip a toe in the water, is that next season The Voice include in their rehearsal segments an on-screen credit to the songwriters, along with the title, just as they currently put up the Twitter name for the artists. Surely a credit is as important as a Tweet?

Years ago, when I worked for the publishing companies at RCA Records, we were in the process of negotiating a blanket license for our catalogues, for which the record company wanted a greatly reduced rate.  I wouldn’t agree. They proposed a slightly higher rate, and I still wouldn’t agree.  One of the business affairs reps on the record company side asked “What’s with you? Were you raised in the Brill Building or something?”  I always took that as a great compliment, since I was standing up for my songwriters.

 

And here I am, a few decades later, standing up for songwriters again. I may be tilting at windmills, but it feels good. 

Jeanne McCafferty is an editor, writer and book designer.  You can see samples of her work and learn how to contact her at www.jeannemccafferty.com. 
She is on Twitter @IrishCabrini.