Performing Songwriter Creative Workshops

Small gatherings of like-minded souls, learning to tell our stories in a way that connects with listeners under the guidance and support of revered songwriters.

A Community of Kindreds

Small gatherings of 10-15 people in a supportive environment, telling our stories and singing our songs. The bonus is life-long friendships made and common interests shared.

Inspiration from Hall of Fame Songwriters

Our teachers are award-winning artists and Songwriting Hall of Fame members, generous in spirit and happy to share their knowledge with you.

Personal Time With Your Songwriting Heroes

Private sessions with the teacher and song work in small groups help you hone your craft and fill your creative toolbox.

Inspiration From Our Circle of Friends

Not only does our teaching faculty inspire, but surprise guests like Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, Byran Adams, Amy Grant, Keb ‘Mo and more pop by for conversation and song sharing.

Creative Immersion on International Retreats

Small group, week-long adventures with one of our songwriting teachers to a villa in Tuscany, castle in Scotland and Casa in Mexico are life-changing and fill your creative  cup to the brim.

Special Master Classes for Workshop Alumni

In addition to our international retreats, there are several workshops available to alumni including one on performance, a melody master class, and studio recording.

Alan Freed and the Radio Payola Scandal

On Nov. 20, 1959, DJ Alan Freed was fired from WABC radio when the pay-for-play scandal erupted. Here’s the story behind that era of pay-for-play, when the ’50s music scene was the convergence of a number of seismic factors.

Rock’s FBI Files: John Lennon

In March 1972 John Lennon’s visa was revoked and deportation proceedings were filed after President Nixon decided the most dangerous man in America was a singer-songwriter with bad eyesight and a British accent.

Bob Dylan Plugs In

Bob Dylan stepped on stage July 25, 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric band in tow, which many folk purists in the crowd considered a heresy.

Censored Songs In American History

Censorship is nothing new. In fact, it was 1735 when the first song was banned in America. Here’s a look at 8 songs that were considered too dangerous or immoral to be heard.

Rock’s Mysterious Deaths: Jeff Buckley

In the days following his disappearance, many of Jeff Buckley’s friends refused to believe he had drowned. Jeff had a habit of disappearing for days at a time. Maybe he was just hiding out. Maybe he wanted to escape the pressures of recording his second album.

Frank Sinatra: The Stories Behind His Songs

Frank Sinatra was the best friend a song ever had. We have the stories behind some of his greatest hits— like “Nice ‘n’ Easy,” “My Way,” “It Was a Very Good Year,” “All the Way,” and “The Best Is Yet to Come”—told by the songwriters.

Rock’s Mysterious Deaths: Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke was shot to death on Dec. 10, 1964 outside an L.A. Motel under mysterious circumstances. With many questions left unanswered, Performing Songwriter takes a look at that fateful night.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

On Dec. 9, 1965 ‘Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown’ became synonymous with the holiday when “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and its Vince Guaraldi soundtrack aired for the first time.

Tom Waits Quotes and Quips

Tom Waits is as much of a character as any of the hundreds of freaks, carnies and people waiting for salvation at the bottom of a glass that he creates in his songs. It was in 1973 that Waits launched his whiskey-soaked persona with the release of Closing Time, an...

Farewell, Merle Haggard

On April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday, Merle Haggard left this earth. To honor him, here is an interview from 2007 where he chatted with us about Johnny Cash, jail and wild nights with George Jones. Farewell, Hag. Thank you for a lifetime of music and memories.

The Remarkable Life of Dolly Parton

Dolly parton talks about her favorite subject—songwriting. Included is the story behind “I Will Always Love You” and turning down Elvis Presley when he wanted to record it.

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I don’t know how [songwriting] works. I have thought about this a lot and I haven’t made any progress. It’s a mystery. Which is great, actually. I like that it’s a mystery. It’s not something I can unravel. It’s like trying to figure out how we got here. It’s involved with that. It makes no more sense that the rest of it. But I do know how to screw it up. So since I know how to screw it up, I know how not to. Just don’t do those other things. Stay out of the way. For instance, when I write, I don’t stop. I don’t stop to haggle over a word or a form or a “this” or a “that.” I don’t stop. I go straight through to where the end is. Then I’ll go back. If I stop, that’s it, it’s over.

— Lou Reed

Issue 48, September/October 2000

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I think, for me—because I haven’t been in a horrible marriage and I don’t have delinquent children that I’m trying to get through college—I haven’t had a lot of those bad experiences that really twist people’s minds. That’s when you stop writing about love, and you stop writing about the possibility of love, and when you stop writing about the possibility of love, you are no longer relevant. I don’t really care if I get married at this point, I’m quite happy by myself, but I do live in the realm of romantic possibility. Mr. Right. It’s possible that he’s around the corner—that he could he just be driving up the street and I could have a flat tire and there he is (laughs). That allows me to write with hope.

—Stevie Nicks

Issue 69, May 2003

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I have found that there’s just meant to be cycles to creativity.  There are times when you’re going to be extremely creative and times when you’re not, and I think the times you’re not heeds the next part of the cycle.  And that’s definitely happened with me over and over and over again. For as long as I can remember, there were times when I just didn’t have anything to say. Or, if I did, it wasn’t ready to come out yet. So I sort of learned to endure those times and know that chances are the circle will come around again if I just try to be patient.

—Marc Cohn

Issue 30, May 1998

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I think it’s important to tell our stories – just to add it to the soup – because I think in the end it’s more flavorful than if there were only a few. Especially for people who can’t see their stories on TV or read them in history books and stand up for themselves. Their only option then, which I think is a really important first step, is to relate their own experiences. That’s all I intend to do in my songs – just tell my story and write about what I know.

—Ani DiFranco

Issue 12, May/June 1995

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When I got to Motown, I had an idea—I wanted to get rid of this stigma of “race music.” There were some nasty events that happened to me as a child, racial things. I figured that music could bring people together. It was that one common denominator that could get around all obstacles, all hatreds or stupid prejudices. With music, in the ’50s, I’d seen people dance, come together. I saw the beginning of something that could be good for the world. With that in mind, I started compiling ideas.

—Lamont Dozier

Issue 70, June 2003

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I think that in music there’s a oneness, there’s a sweetness. Or there can be. What I call music, anyway … the music I like. I go to it for that oneness and that sweetness. If you look at the world, there’s so much separation. There are polarities and wars. But to sense a oneness and a sweetness, I mean, that it. That was the ultimate. The best thing in life. And I did sense that in music, so that’s what is divine to me. That’s a form of the divine.

—Laura Nyro

Issue 24, May/June 1997

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I don’t think songwriter ever gets easier. It certainly doesn’t get any less interesting. It’s still fascinating and there’s still no easy solution with songwriting. It’s a vast skill or craft or art or whatever it may be. I never think I know how to do it, so I keep a respect for the process of writing songs.

—Steve Winwood

Issue 26, Sept/Oct 1997

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When I am writing a song, say, a blues song, it’s not up to me to try to make it a reggae song. Because the songs tell you, “I am a blues song. I am not a reggae song.” Maybe when it’s finished and it’s in its pure form, somebody else could take it and change it and then it will work. Because it has already become what it was meant to be. But writing a bad song and saying, well, it’s bad because it’s not reggae, or it’s not blues or it’s not a ballad, that doesn’t make much sense. Because a song is what it is. It also sets its own tempo. It tells you what pace it should be taken at. And it also sets its own key.

—Joan Armatrading

Issue 43, Jan/Feb 2000

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I’d like to believe, whether it’s true or not, that I’m getting better—or at least that I’m not getting worse. Music is so complicated that it’s something you can always get better at. I don’t understand the fact that most singer-songwriters in pop music do their best work at a young age. If I thought that were true about me, I’d just do something else.”

—Randy Newman

Issue 112, September/October 2008

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I never thought I could sing. Doo would come in from working and catch me rocking my babies to sleep. And I would be singing, “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas …” (laughs). That was the only song that I could sing to them that would make them go to sleep. He came in one night and said, “Loretta, I’ve got an idea.” I thought, “Oh, Lord.” He said, “I’m going to go down the road to this little club and get you a job singing.” I said, “Doo, I can’t sing.” He said, “Yes, you can. I’ve been listening to the radio, and all these other singers that I hear can’t sing no better than you.” And he said, “After about two years on the road, we can buy us a home and settle down and we won’t ever have to worry about it anymore.” Well, my goodness, after two years, I was still having a hard time frying a hamburger (laughs).

—Loretta Lynn

Issue 82, December 2004

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“You’re never quite sure where the song is going, because you might not find the word to rhyme with the end of the line. You have to find associative meaning to get you there. So it’s rather like doing a crossword puzzle backwards. A kind of strange, three-dimensional, abstract crossword puzzle.”

—Annie Lennox

Issue 91, January/February 2006

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“There’s a feeling when I’m on to an idea and making something up that’s almost a momentum that carries me and I find pushes me into the next verse. It’s not really a matter of doing an outline. And you know in school we were always taught to do an outline, and I never did that.  I’d always make up my outline after I finished whatever it was that I was writing. And that’s the fun of writing and making something up—kind of getting inside of it and letting it carry you through.”

—Lyle Lovett

Issue 34, December 1998

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“You don’t want to be held back because of a lack of technique. Technique is practice. But technique is not where it’s at. Where it’s really at is what you do with what you got. The key to it is to say something with your instrument, so it’s like a conversation. You’re getting a message across. If the fellow you’re speaking to is very intelligent, you can get more technical. But if he’s not particularly intellectual, you realize this, and you don’t try to educate the man, but you try to talk to him on his terms.”

—Les Paul

[Issue 88, Sept/Oct 2005

Les Paul
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“The easiest thing to write is a difficult song. Just play a bunch of chords and hit a bunch of melodies. OK, congratulations, you’re a songwriter. Now, can you write a song that people can name in four notes? If you can do that, you, my friend, have done the hardest thing in the world: You’ve written a simple song (laughs). If I sing, ‘You’re once …’ and stop right there, you know the song [‘Three Times a Lady’]. You never heard a chord, a drumbeat or a cymbal crash, but you know where we’re going.”

—Lionel Richie

Issue 115, Jan/Feb 2009

Lionel Richie
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“Songs are architectural, living, changing aural environments. It’s difficult to disassemble them. Some lines are just a part of your life—you sing them over and over again. But for the most part, the songs that I don’t use don’t get found anywhere. They are rather developers, things that lead to other, better songs, hopefully. But you have to write them; they are part of the building blocks. They take you there.”

—Rickie Lee Jones

Issue 87, Jul/Aug 2005

Rickie Lee Jones