I’m not sure exactly when I met Steve. It could be the year he won the Kerrville Songwriters’ competition. Or, it could have been in the Kerrville campgrounds before that.

Either way, when I moved to New York in 1986 and joined the volunteer staff at Fast Folk Musical Magazine (their catalog is now part of the Smithsonian’s archives), Steve was a stalwart member helping get unknown writer’s as much exposure as possible. (People first showcased on Fast Folk include Lyle Lovette, Suzanne Vega, and Michelle Shocked.)

When I moved to Washington, DC in 1991, there was Steve, hosting open mikes, running songwriter showcases, always supporting others. I was quite complimented when he asked me to be one of the 40 songwriters who helped him celebrate his 40th birthday.

All of this support for others is pretty impressive for a guy who is a great songwriter himself. Check out his song Record Time on Kathy Mattea’s album Lonesome Standard Time as an example. Fast Folk had its annual concert at the Bottom Line in the Village. Kathy Mattea had been a featured guest. As she was leaving, she heard another great songwriter Josh Joffen on stage singing Record Time. It stopped her in her tracks, and she ran backstage to get rights to Steve’s song!

Today Steve is back in his home state of California, performing up a storm and showcasing bunches of other artists (naturally).

You can check him out HERE.

Back in the early 1980s, a fellow named John Gorka won the Kerrville Music Festical’s annual songwriter contest. His prize was two-fold: first, he go to open the two week festival on the main stage. Second, he received a free scholarship to the mid-festival three day songwriters’ workshop.

I had the good fortune of attending that workshop (see post on Steve Gillette), and instantly fell for John’s songs.

How could you not love songs about wanting to grow up to be a tree, how BB King was wrong, or fantasies of the thoughts and dreams of dairy cows in the winter fields of the midwest?

When I moved to NYC in 1986, I kept up with the songwriter community by joining the Musician’s Coop that oversaw entertainment at The Speakeasy on MacDougal Street in the Village. And who should later also move to NYC but John Gorka.

I wouldn’t say we became more than acquaintances, but one of my best memories is trading songs in the Village’s Washington Square on a warm Summer midnight with John Gorka and Michelle Shocked.

John went on to Nashville, TV appearances, etc., and easily sells out the Barns at Wolftrap when he plays the DC area.

Check him out here:

http://johngorka.com/

Also, see his wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gorka

After Lu Mitchell, the second full bore songwriter I got to know was Steve Gillette.

One evening at a Kerrville Music Festival in the Texas Hill Country, I was attempting to play the blues around a campfire about midnight.

There were two other musicians around the fire who were putting in the most wonderful licks and fills as I sang and played my guitar. One I recognized. It was Josh White Jr., the son of one of my childhood idols and superb performer in his own right. The other, it turned out, was Steve. We ended up at a number of the same blues campfires that week.

A year or so later, I took a songwriters’ three day workshop at another Kerrville Festival, with quite a great faculty: the late Bob Gibson, Tom Paxton, Jon Ims (She’s In Love With the Boy) and Steve.

Every now and then I still run into him (it’s been quire a few years now) at house concerts, etc. For those songwriters who might be reading this, Steve told an interesting story at that workshop:

He and Tom Campbell wrote Darcy Farrow back in 1965 based on a horse accident that happened to Steve’s sister. Late one night, John Denver was finishing an album, and ended the session by cutting Darcy Farrow (yes, they actually cut grooves into a master disk to make vinyl records those days). Normally his people would have already tied up the rights to the song, but in this case, that hadn’t happened because Denver added it to the album as a last minute change.

So, when Denver’s people asked to share the publishing rights to the song, Tom and Steve turned them down. They had formed their own publishing company, and felt pretty good about being in the driver’s seat, thereby keeping 100% of the publisher’s rights (and earnings). The song made them some great money.

However, while there were myriad John Denver compilation albums issued over the next three decades, somehow Darcy Farrow never made onto a single one. And therefore generated no additional earnings from Denver’s cover of the song, shared or otherwise.

Moral of the story: 100% of nothing is nothing.

Check him out.  You’ll love him and his wonderfully talented wife Cindy Mangsen – their site is here.