Dallas Songwriters Prez Sez

Dallas Songwriters, this is the last post as President for this term.  We will hold board elections tomorrow to find out who will be our next President.  I hope everyone got something out of last year with the variety of programs and workshops we had.  Numerous performance events and workshops added greatly over the year.  We started off January with Nancy Rynders talking about "Elements of a Good Song Lyric".  In February we had Emmy and Grammy award winning songwriter Barry DeVorzon.  He talked about his experiences and then demonstrated MasterWriter software for us.  In March we had a Skype session with Carly Simon and her son Ben Taylor (son of James Taylor) for what turned out to be a magical evening where Carly said "you are songwriters, play me some songs".  April was a fun evening with up and coming local artist, Zane Williams.  Zane played for us and talked about his formula for success.  In May, we took a new twist on Extreme Co-writes by using the melody for "Let It Be" and writing new words for the melody.  We had some interesting songs come out of that meeting.  Richard Chalk, Top Cat Records, delivered out May program with insights into his world of music for June.  Guitar legend and former John Denver guitarist Steve Weisberg came an spoke and played in July.  What a story he had to tell, and a great evening.  Mike Hall, from Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse, spoke to us in September about the local music scene ab=nd getting booked at local gigs.  In October we had another round of Extreme Co-writes, but this time with another twist.  I passed out slips of paper and told people to write down the line they would most want to hear in a song.  All the lines were written on the board, and the room was divided into two groups.  Each group had about an hour to use as many lines as possible to write a song.  It was amazing what songs came from that meeting.  November followed with local up and coming singer/songwriter Helene Cronin and her song Lucky Me that has been recorded by Nashville artists.

We had a blues workshop with local bluesman Hash Brown and participated in the Texas Independent Music Expo (TIME).  This year we took charge of the Wildflower Songwriters School and arranged for Beth Nielsen Chapman to lead the school.  We also manned the Acoustic stage at Wildflower and provided sound for the stage with many of our DSA members performing.

A 15 year old girl from Katy Texas took top honors in the DSA Songwriting contest and won a Taylor Guitar autographed by Beth Nielsen Chapman.  Beth also server as a judge for the contest this year.

We had our normal song swaps and open mics and added a showcase/open mic on the first Thursday at HalfPrice Books on Northwest Highway.

We had two members pass away in 2012.  Larry Dodge passed from complications from a fall, and Vern Dailey passed away having never fully recovered from surgery.  We have named our annual Songwriter of the year as the Vern Dailey Dallas Songwriter of the year in his memory since he took to honors so many years.  Vern will be missed.

Barbe McMillen brought her musical to stage and will be sending it out on the road to Austin before long.  We all wish her success in her musical.

Last but not least, James Pappas was recognized as the first Vern Dailey DSA Songwriter of the year for submitting the most songs to critique that took first or second place.  Congratulations to James and his hard work.

I am looking forward to 2013.  We have a new board with some returning and some new members.  Let's all find a DSA activity to get involved in this year.  Let's go out and have fun and write some hit songs.  Good luck Dallas Songwriters.