Tuned in: Las Vegas Songwriters Association ready for rhyme time

Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2001 | 8:31 a.m.

If Betty Miller can tug at your heartstrings, she's done her task well.

She's a songwriter who's been writing country songs for nearly 20 years. She takes ideas from catchy phrases, television shows or newspaper stories, then turns them into heartfelt lyrics that she sends to Nashville, Tenn., to have recorded onto a demo tape.

The grandmother of 10 has written at least 200 songs, four of which are under contracts with publishers and four that have been recorded by country artists, including Charley Pride.

From years of practice and annual trips to Nashville, Miller has insight into the industry and knows what it takes to make a hit song.

"You hope they get a lump in their throat," said Miller, while sitting in the country-style kitchen of her Las Vegas home. "You want to pull emotion out of a listener. It can make you mad. It can make you sad. It can make you happy."

Either way, she said, "You only have about 15 seconds before they change the (radio) station." With a smile, she added, "If I can make you cry with one of my songs, that's all right."

As president of the Las Vegas Songwriters Association, she's always willing to help fellow songwriters create a potential hit song.

In fact, all of the group's 70 members are eager to help each other out. The nonprofit organization meets three times a month in a workshop setting designed for members to critique each other's latest work.

Members whose day jobs range from bankers to construction workers to retirees and business women who spend their free time writing songs discuss meter and rhyme, evoking emotion, signing contracts, making demo tapes and the formalities of professionalism, as well as how to steer clear to industry "song sharks" (who ask for money in advance to publish a song).

Additionally, guest speakers and industry experts share their personal experiences in songwriting. And publishers -- such as Dale Kawashima of Los Angeles, who will meet with the group Saturday (the public is invited) -- are brought in to hear demo tapes made by the members.

"Everybody has something they want to tell," Miller said. "We've had people come in who didn't know what a verse was, what a chorus was. They just wanted to write. Anybody who has a question, we take the time and explain it.

"We're not going to tell you it's a wonderful song if it's not," she added. "Because all you're going to do is waste money."

A demo recording can cost $200-$500 and may last only a few seconds in a publisher's hand before it is tossed into the garbage, which is why such groups (and there are many nationwide) are invaluable to songwriters.

"A lot of people come and they're told to rewrite," Joan Walker, the group's co-founder, said. "That's not what they want to (hear)."

But, she added, these are the people who otherwise "will get eaten alive in the marketplace."

The market is competitive, Miller said. There are "street writers" (who write in their spare time) and publishing companies that have staff writers.

"As a street writer you have to write something better than is in the house," Miller said. " 'You kind of have to be listening to what's happening and be one step ahead of it."

Walker and Sharon Cookson (Miller's sister-in-law) founded the songwriters group nearly 20 years ago after the two met at a seminar conducted by lyricist Buddy Kaye.

Kaye liked one of Walker's songs so much that he began a yearlong correspondence with her, during which Kaye (who lived in Los Angeles) would critique Walker's lyrics that she sent to him each week. The information was passed along to Miller, Cookson and a handful of other local songwriters who were meeting informally at each other's homes.

Building a bond

"Everything Buddy told me, I told them," Walker said.

The group formed officially a few years later and began collecting membership fees. At the end of the first year it had its first publisher visit to hear some of the songs.

Since then the group has been meeting regularly -- with members building friendships and helping each other with songs, all of them hoping that someone will write a hit.

"We keep doing it because we believe it's going to happen," Walker said about the love of lyric writing.

Walker moved to Nashville about eight years ago to be closer to the music scene and is in Las Vegas for the summer.

"I had to come home and hone my craft again and work back up," Walker said. "It's a craft. It's like carpentry or anything else."

Walker said she doesn't play an instrument or sing, but has written about 100 song lyrics. She and her writing partner, Las Vegan Naomi Lewis, have written eight songs in the last few months that are being made into demo tapes in Nashville.

Her song, "You Win the Battle," was recorded by Eddie Rivers and reached No. 93 on the Billboard Country Music charts in the mid-1980s. And, she said, representatives of Randy Travis recently listened to one of her songs and told her, "This is really close" to being a hit song.

For Walker, that's enough encouragement to keep her writing.

"In Nashville, you just book appointments, then you just live for the next song," Walker said. "That's what you do.

"There are so many times I've said to myself, 'How do I get out of this?' "

But leaving the industry is not that easy. "It gets in your skin and you can't quit," Miller said.

The creative process

Twenty years ago neither Miller nor Walker had any songwriting experience.

Walker had written poetry and Miller had grown up listening to country music. Both quickly developed their lyric-writing skills.

"If someone were to come to me and ask how to become a songwriter, I'd tell 'em, 'First divorce your husband, then you have to lose your children,' " Miller said with a laugh, then added, "Not really."

Miller, an information reporter for publishing company McGraw-Hill, has no shortage of ideas for writing lyrics.

The inspiration for one of her songs, "No Matter Where You Are," came from a newspaper advertisement that featured a picture of a little girl and a message from her father: "Wherever you are, I'll always love you. Your Daddy."

Another song, "Beyond The Wall," which she co-wrote in 1994 with Marcia McCaslin, was inspired by her visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The song was recorded by Pride and released on the compilation 1998 CD "These Colors Won't Run: A Veteran Tribute."

Miller has also co-written an assortment of children's songs.

Once songs are written, they are recorded onto a demo tape and passed along to a publisher. If a publisher likes a song, he or she will sign a contract with the writer, then try to gain the interest of a recording artist or record label.

There are many levels to the music industry, Miller said. "And the writers are -- I don't want to say at the bottom -- but just the beginning."

If the song is recorded by an artist, the writer and publisher split the sales proceeds, which may amount to only a few cents for each CD sold.

Even if a song makes it, it's not likely that a songwriter will make very much money from it, Walker said. "You can have it in the can and still be waiting tables."

On the other hand, she said, "If you wrote five No. 1 hits you couldn't live long enough to spend the money. You only have to write one."

Success in all forms

You just never know what's going to come along," said Pamela Phillips Oland, a career lyricist and author of "The Art of Writing Great Lyrics" (Allworth Press, 2001).

Oland, a former Las Vegas resident, co-wrote "Digga Digga Dog" for Disney's "102 Dalmations" and the Grammy-nominated "Nobody Loves Me Like You Do," a duet recorded by Anne Murray and '70s artist Dave Loggins, among others.

Aretha Franklin, Berlin and Reba McEntire are among a long list of artists and groups who have recorded lyrics written by Oland.

Similar to Walker, Oland began lyric writing by putting her poems to music and continued from there. She encourages lyricists to keep writing.

"The song that you never write could be the one that made you successful," Oland said. "Trusting inspiration, trusting a great idea and allowing it to come out on paper is the key.

"And so what if you don't get your songs recorded?" she said. "Look at what you've created -- and all the fun you've had."

Both Walker and Miller attest to the good times of a lyric writer and to the friends each has made along the way.

"In my life (songwriting) has been such a catalyst to touch other people's lives and get to know people," Walker said.

Miller added, "It's really important for people to say, 'I really liked your song.' "

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