Writing Songs in Retirement

[DaveKell]

I retired at age 58 from a lucrative career as a master signpainter and pinstriper. Three years ago I bought a new house out in rural horse country in Reno, TX. An 83 year old guy in a western hat came up to me at a craft fair a little over a year ago and introduced himself. He told me about a weekly jam session he holds every Friday at a local restaurant. He invited me to stop in. At age 64 I was actually the young whippersnapper at the jam. It was about a dozen folks in their 70's and 80's whose repertoire was pure ancient country gold. The old guy who invited me plays lead on the only electric at the jam. About 6 months ago he said he thought someone should try writing some new material for us to learn instead of all the old stuff getting rehashed every week. The following Friday I reluctantly debuted my first original since childhood (that's another story in itself!). To my surprise they all loved it. Since then I've played up to 13 originals when I've stayed all 3 hours of the jam.

 

I have a friend of over 40 years who is a retired songwriter in Nashville. His songs have been cut by the likes of Garth Brooks, John Denver, Dianna Ross and Charley Pride and many others. I started sending him scratch recordings of my songs and he blew me away with his praise of my work. He's not the kind of guy to hand out compliments because of our friendship. Recently at the jam a harmonica player showed up. He said he was lifelong friends with my favorite songwriter, Mickey Newbury and had played on many of his recordings. I played the only Newbury song I knew and he joined in on a thrilling music event in my life. We've become friends since then and he is currently practicing two songs I had recorded at a professional studio of my favorite songs. Next week he's going into the studio to record tracks of him playing harmonica on my demos. I'm thrilled beyond measure that the universe brought a guy who was friends with Townes VanZandt, Guy Clark, Hank Jr., Kristofferson and the incomparable Newbury into my life, and that he's willing to play on my demos.

 

At my age I harbor no illusions of recognition for my writing or even any fantasies of financial rewards for it. I'm comfortably retired. I am entirely obsessed with songwriting though. It's currently my overriding identity in life and everyone around me knows it. Whether lightning ever strikes from the effort or not is immaterial. I'm having the ultimate blast writing new songs at the rate of 2 or 3 a week anymore. I even dream about it at night. I haven't been this consumed with something since I was a young guy pestering old signpainters into letting me apprentice with them. Anyway, it's nice to meet y'all!

[Peggy]

Hi Dave,

Welcome to SongStuff!! Now that's a great introduction! 

Fun group around here too. Enjoy! 

 

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[geographyhorse]

 Great story. Thanks for sharing and welcome.