Words & Music: Most people remember when they first heard a song that touched their lives. Now, learn about how the songs were written and the stories behind them in Words & Music: The Showcase for Nashville's Songwriters. Veteran entertainment reporter Harry Chapman sits down with successful songwriters who share their music and their stories, as well as important information and insights for aspiring writers. Words & Music is produced in partnership with the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
Show 1
(Granville Automatic) Vanessa Olivarez &
Elizabeth Elkins:
Granville Automatic is Vanessa Olivarez and Elizabeth
Elkins. The duo write songs pulled from a shared love of good storytelling,
horses, history and war. Granville Automatic is named after a 19th-century
typewriter: Vanessa is a collector. With sonic references like Lyle Lovett,
Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, Granville Automatic has created
a quiet and lyrical sound devoted to telling stories from the past. After
writing together first in the spring of 2009, the pair has more than 100 songs.
The band's self-titled debut studio album is now
available. Recorded at The Station House in Echo Park, Los Angeles, with
producer Ted Russell Kamp, the record features 11 songs including "Comanche" (about the horse who survived the
Battle of Little Big Horn), "Hazel Creek" (about a town flooded when the TVA
built Fontana Dam), "Blood and Gold" (the story of the mustang), "The Groundskeeper"
(about a Civil War ghost seen at Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee),
"Flying Mercury" (about the 19th-century Pepin & Breschard
Circus), "Carolina Amen" (about a solider lost in the
Civil War battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse), "Copenhill" (about Sherman's
burning of Atlanta) and "Shores of Maryland" – as well as live favorites "Never
On A Sunday," "Tacoma Coal Line" and "Don't Come to Tennessee." The studio band
included Kamp on bass, drummer Jim Doyle, guitarist/pedal steel player John
Schreffler, Jr. and Bethany Dick-Olds on fiddle and vocals. Legendary harmonica
player Mickey Raphael also joined in.
Also look for the iTunes exclusive Live from Sun Studio,
an eight-song set recorded live at Memphis'
historic Sun Studio and released in 2012.
The band has appeared on the PBS television programs Sun
Studio Sessions and WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour - as well as Nashville Public
Radio's Live at the Bluebird Café (their photograph now hangs on the wall at
the famous venue).
Chosen as the 2012 Composers in Residence at Seaside, Florida's
prestigious Escape to Create program, the pair spent a month in residence
there, writing An Army Without Music: Civil War Stories from Hallowed Ground.
The new material premiered to a capacity crowd at the Seaside Repertory
Theater. Those songs will become the duo's third album, a double album: one
disc of songs recorded live on battle sites across the country, and the other
disc offering full-band studio versions of the songs. The pair has partnered
with the Civil War Trust for the live recordings, which are on-going in 2013.
For more information on this project, visit www.granvilleautomatic.com/civilwar.
The girls are also currently writing their fourth album,
Dancing at El Mercado - a collection of songs inspired by Texas and Vanessa's childhood in the Lone Star
State.
Granville Automatic averages more than 250 tour dates a
year. The duo has played at Hotel Café in Los Angeles, the Tin Angel and World
Café Live in Philadelphia, The Bitter End and The Living Room in New York City,
Momo's in Austin, Eddie's Attic in Atlanta and the Bluebird Café in Nashville.
They have also showcased at BMI's
Acoustic Lounge in Los Angeles
and appeared on Nashville's
103 WKDF radio, Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Thacker Mountain Radio and
NBC Atlanta's Morning Show.
They have performed at SXSW, the CMA
Music Festival, the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival, the 30A Songwriters
Festival and the Key West Songwriters Festival.
The band was a finalist in Mountain Stage's NewSong
Contest and a semi-finalist in the Unsigned Only competition. They won third
prize in Spin Magazine's Next Great American Road Song contest, made the finals
in the Maurice Small Town Sounds competition and USAA's GarageBand Playoff and were
in the Top 50 for the Wildflower Performing Songwriter Competition.
Both girls have a history in the music business:
Vocalist/songwriter Olivarez wrote and recorded a Top 10 single in Canada,
has three cuts on Sugarland records, including a song on their multi-platinum
Enjoy the Ride album, and received a Dora nomination for her work in the Toronto production of
Hairspray. She was also a finalist on the second season of American Idol.
Guitarist/songwriter Elkins is a Grand Prize winner of
the John Lennon Songwriting Contest who has showcased at the Billboard/BMI Acoustic Brunch at SXSW, at BMI showcases in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Nashville, and at CMJ. Elkins' songs have
appeared on television programs from Smallville to Rescue, Maine, from Jersey Shore
to CNN and in the film Mean Girls 2.
Balancing lives between Atlanta and Nashville, the two co-write frequently across
the States for other artists – including collaborations with Nashville's top country and pop writers and
some of the best pop and urban writers in Atlanta,
New York City and Los Angeles. A pop song
they co-wrote was recently heard on ABC's The Lying Game.
For more information visit www.granvilleautomatic.com, www.youtube.com/granvilleautomatic
www.facebook.com/granvilleautomatic
or www.twitter.com/gvilleautomatic.
On Words & Music, Granville Automatic performs "Never on
a Sunday," "Goodnight House," "Sugarland" and "The Groundskeeper."
Show 2
Billy Dean
Tennessee
has long been known throughout the world for its rich musical heritage;
talented musicians from across the nation have traveled to Nashville to begin legendary careers that
have earned Music City USA a reputation that is
unsurpassed in the pantheon of American Music.
One such talented musician is Billy Dean, whose insightful
songwriting, clear and distinctive voice, and masterful instrumental gifts have
earned him accolades from many awards academies and countless devoted fans.
A native of Quincy,
Florida, Billy was raised
appreciating the value of music and has a diverse array of musical influences. After
attending college on a basketball scholarship, Billy moved to Nashville in 1983 and by 1990 had recorded
his first Top 5 Hit "Only Here for A Little While."
Since then, Billy has transcended genres with his unique
repertoire earning numerous awards, including: The Academy of Country Music's
Song of the Year "Somewhere In My Broken Heart," ACM New Male
Vocalist of The Year, BMI Pop
Awards, BMI Song Awards, BMI Million Air Plays Award, Country Music
Television Rising Star Award, NSAI Song of The Year, and a Grammy for a Country
Tribute "Amazing Grace."
Billy's appeal reaches beyond the music world. He has
appeared on numerous television shows as well as made-for TV movies, including:
Blue Valley Songbird, A Face to Kill For, Lois & Clark, One Life to Live,
Diagnosis Murder, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show, The Montel Show, and
many others.
After twelve albums and eleven Top 10 singles, Billy has
founded the publishing company BDMG (Billy Dean Music Group). Billy continues
to make contributions to the Country Music world by building brands with music
and empowering children, which he does by being a spokesperson for "Averitt
Cares for Kids," and Sunkist's "Take A Stand" Program.
In 2012, Billy released his latest album, A Man of Good
Fortune. Four years ago,
Dean took a break from the recording studio, spending his time developing Billy
Dean Music Group and continuing to tour regularly, keeping a connection with
fans, both old and new. This hiatus from the studio gave Dean the time to pen
many of the songs included on the new album. Dean co-wrote seven of the
ten songs included on A Man of Good Fortune.
"Music has deeply enriched my life," notes Dean.
"My fans have waited patiently for this new release because they know this
one is for them. It's because of my fans and their support that I've spent
most of my life on a musical journey and that's why I truly feel like 'A Man of
Good Fortune.'"
Dean adds, "I owe a great deal of gratitude to my
manager, Ron Rainey, for giving this new music a home at his label, Rainman
Records. I hope it will be worth the wait."
For more information on Billy Dean, visit www.billydean.com.
On Words & Music Billy performs "Somewhere in My Broken
Heart," "Billy the Kid," "Real Things" and "All the Difference in the World."
The show airs at the following times:
Saturday
3:00am
Sunday
3:00am
Tuesday
1:00pm
Wednesday
12:30pm
