Question For Songwriters

Contact some MUSIC publishing companies. They have publishing contracts with people who are just songwriters and don't want to perform them themselves.

http://www.taxi.com/faq/publishing/music-publishers.html

This is a good website with a lot of info about songwriting and the music business.

I'd also put a post on craigslist in memphis, nashville, etc....

I'll bet you get flooded with responses.

Hi Angela,

This is more complicated than it might at first appear to be.

Contacting publishing companies for songs you might be able to use is undoubtedly the best way to go but it may take a lot of work on the bands part.

Approaching individual artists may be the simplist way because sites like www.acidplanet.com and others have thousands of songs in dozens of categories tha one can check out and make a informed decision on that which might be appropriate for them, but the negative side is that direct sale of a song is the worst thing a songwriter can do, for it cuts them out of any further earning or credit fro what is rightfully theirs. and few currently would be interested in doing so because many are well aware of the horror stories from the past concerning the likes of Willie Nelson and Ike Turner, and many others, who sold songs for pocket change that later became chart toppers.

My take is that the best choice would to be to contact the writers of songs one thinks they can use and try to get an agreement to demo them and get them published as collaborations or, alternatively, to try to get such songwriters to write some songs for them so that all will benefit.

Regrettably, none of those ideas are sure-fire or easy to achieve so I can only wish your friends the best of luck.

Jim Hoye (JRH)