Last fall on a crisp October morning, the text messages started coming in fast and furious.
“Congratulations!!!”
“This is Awesome. Proud of you!”
Then, a message arrived from Tony Mantor, a long time Nashville veteran who had recorded my song, Why Not Me?
Just wanted to let you know that Why Not Me? has made the Grammy ballot for Song of the Year and Country Song of the Year.
Nashville Singer, Producer Tony Mantor
I am rarely speechless, but I was shocked. I have been writing songs for almost 50 years. I take it very seriously. I go into my writing room and I work as if a star was waiting outside my door for the finished work. I parse every word and phrase. I read through every line over and over again checking to be sure that it all hangs together in every way. Even after I walk out of the room I think about it and obsess.
Every now and then I have recorded a collection of those songs and release them commercially.
The last one was in 2000. Songs From My Window Seat. Twenty one years ago.
Suddenly, at age 65, I have a song on the Grammy ballot in two categories. Just for fun I worked up and polished a Grammy acceptance speech. I rehearsed it with my wife, Susie. It would go something like this:
I would walk to the stage and stand behind the podium. Holding up the Grammy, and then I would say:
“If you’re out there and you have worked a really long time on something you know you are supposed to be doing and it hasn’t happened yet, Keep going. Keep working. Because you never know what’s just around the next corner.”
And that’s my message for you as well. I am releasing my first record in twenty years on September 1. I believe What Love Makes Us Do is my best work.
Produced by Little River Band guitarist, Rich Herring. I sat down this week and listened to the record in its entirety for the first time. I fought back tears as I listened.
Every note of every song reminds me that God’s timing is not my timing. Things happen when they are supposed to happen. My job and yours is to keep working and walking.
Because we never know what’s just around the next corner.
