Ep. 69 - RANDY STARR ("Kissin' Cousins")

08/15/17 • 42 min

One of the great tales of songwriting history is the story of Dr. Nadel and Mr. Starr. Dr. Warren Nadel was a successful New York dentist who maintained a dual career as Randy Starr, best known for writing and recording the Billboard Top 40 pop hit, “After School.” He appeared on American Bandstand several times and went on to co-write the instrumental hit “The Enchanted Sea,” which became a charting single for both The Islanders and Martin Denny. He wrote or co-wrote a dozen songs that appeared in Elvis Presley films, including the charting singles “Kissin’ Cousins” and “Almost in Love.” Additionally, his songs have been recorded by Jackie Wilson, Chet Atkins, Kay Starr, Connie Smith, George Hamilton IV, Connie Francis, the Kingston Trio, and many others.

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Ep. 68 - HUGH PRESTWOOD ("The Song Remembers When")

Hugh Prestwood has written twenty charting singles on the Billboard rankings, including eight Top 10 hits. He began his professional career as a folk singer/songwriter in Greenwich Village in the 1970s before finding commercial success as a writer when Judy Collins began recording his songs toward the end of the decade. In the 1980s he appeared on the country charts with the #1 singles “The Sound of Goodbye” by Crystal Gayle and “The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder” by Michael Johnson. By the following decade Prestwood was regularly topping the charts with titles such as Randy Travis’ “Hard Rock Bottom Of Your Heart,” which earned him the BMI Country Song of the Year Award. Similarly, Trisha Yearwood’s recording of “The Song Remembers When” earned him NSAI’s Song of the Year honors and an Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics. Other artists who’ve recording his songs include Alison Krauss, Anne Murray, Conway Twitty, Shelby Lynne, John Conlee, Barbara Mandrell, Gene Watson, The Judds, Lee Greenwood, Tanya Tucker, Alison Krauss, Jimmy Buffet, Sammy Kershaw, Don Williams, Kristin Chenoweth, Vern Gosdin, Kathy Mattea, and Collin Raye, who took the song “On the Verge” to the top of the charts in 1997. Hugh recently released his first full-length album as an artist, I Used to Be the Real Me, on Judy Collins’ Wildflower Records. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.

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Ep. 70 - DAVID OLNEY ("Deeper Well")

Revered by those in the know, David Olney is a prolific master craftsman who The Los Angeles Times once called “the best songwriter you’ve never heard of,” and about whom the San Francisco Chronicle observed, “In the tradition of Johnny Cash and Tom Waits, Olney has become a pioneer of the Americana music scene.” David was one of the few rockers to emerge from Nashville in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, where he launched his career with The X-Rays, who are best remembered for an appearance on the televised Austin City Limits. He went on to transform himself into a folk-infused singer/songwriter with a rootsy rock edge, releasing more than two dozen solo albums since 1986. Many of his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Emmylou Harris, who cut “Jerusalem Tomorrow,” “Deeper Well,” and “1917.” The latter was a duet with Linda Ronstadt, who also recorded her take on David’s “Women Across the River,” a song that’s also been covered by The Band’s Rick Danko. Other artists who’ve drawn from the Olney songbook include Del McCoury, who recorded “Queen Anne’s Lace” and Connie Britton, who recorded “Postcards From Mexico” for the hit television series, Nashville. The late great Towns Van Zant once wrote, “Anytime anyone asks me who my favorite music writers are, I say Mozart, Lightnin' Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and Dave Olney." David’s most recent album is called Don’t Try to Fight It, and he can been seen performing and discussing songs every Tuesday on his live stream cast called You Never Know at DavidOlney.com.