Everette,

One of the biggest skills in all of the entertainment business is in developing the relationship. Aside from writing the song, you have to get it to an audience. To do that you have to present it either through clubs, writer's circles, other venues, the Internet, publishers, producers, etc. That is 85% the success of any writer, artist, etc. especially in the day and age of everyone can try to do this.

The cool thing about Nashville is that the community is actually very close knit, and if you have something of quality, everybody talks about it. It pops up. That doesn't mean it becomes a great hit. It means it gets better access. People who don't understand that and feel they can just "mail things in" never get that part.

Writing, recording, performing, the song is only 15% of it. Without something amazing, all the 85% in the world does no good. And most songs are quite frankly just average. Not nessasarily bad or that good, just average. Very few stand out. If other people don't take it from one person to the next and help build the ride of that song or artist,the song or artist quite simply don't go anywhere.

When Harland Howard, Bobby Braddock, Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson and others moved to town, the same was true then, although those days business was generally done mostly through a shot glass in the local tavern and later, on the golf course, than always on stage or in the studio, whereas now, it is in business lunches, and corporate staff meetings, but the principal has never changed.

It is about getting more people to agree with you and your song than dissagreeing with you. Getting them to invest their time, money and attention with you instead of the millions of other choices out there. That is the true skill. Writing them is the easy part.

MAB