AMP holds Craft of Songwriting panel and Q&A event, June 22

Asheville Music Professionals hosts a panel discussion and Q&A session on the craft of songwriting. The event, held Monday, June 22, at The Altamont Theatre, features Matraca Berg, Jeff Hanna, Jim Lauderdale and Tift Merritt with Erika Wollam Nichols, general manager of The Bluebird Cafe. Local musician and producer Steven Heller moderates. The musicians will also perform as part of a songwriters-in-the-round. Tickets are $10 for the panel, $15 for the songwriters-in-the-round.

Press release from event planners:

Asheville Music Professionals, The Recording Academy®, and The Bluebird Cafe Present:
The Craft of Songwriting Panel & Songwriters In-The-Round
on Monday, June 22, at The Altamont Theatre in Downtown Asheville

Songwriter Panel includes Q&A with audience – Doors 5:30 pm, Start 6pm
Songwriters In-The-Round – Doors 8pm, Start 8:30pm
The Altamont Theatre – 18 Church St. | Asheville, NC 28801

Panelists include: Matraca Berg | Jeff Hanna | Jim Lauderdale | Tift Merritt
Moderated by Steven Heller
With special guest Erika Wollam Nichols, COO/GM of The Bluebird Cafe

FREE FOR RECORDING ACADEMY MEMBERS
RSVP REQUIRED: RSVP_NASHVILLE@GRAMMY.COM
NON-MEMBERS: Panel–$10 | Songwriters In-The-Round–$15
Ticket Purchase Required: http://bit.ly/SongwritersAltamontAVL

Asheville Music Professionals, The Recording Academy®, and The Bluebird Cafe Present The Craft of Songwriting Panel and Songwriters In-The-Round on Monday, June 22, 2015 at The Altamont Theatre in downtown Asheville on Church Street. Doors are at 5 p.m. with the panel starting at 6 p.m., followed by a Songwriter In-The-Round performance from the panelists.

For the panel, a group of accomplished songwriters have been assembled to discuss the different processes each use and how they work to perfect their craft. Panelists include recipient of 13 BMI Country Awards, one BMI Pop Award and co-writer of the 1997 CMA Song of the Year, Matraca Berg; GRAMMY®, CMA, and two-time BMI award winning singer/guitarist/producer and founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jeff Hanna; multiple GRAMMY and Americana Music Association Award-winning artist/musician, Jim Lauderdale, and GRAMMY and Americana Music Association nominee Tift Merritt. The panel will be moderated by producer, composer, engineer, and three-time GRAMMY Award winner, Steven Heller.

The evening is capped off with the songwriters performing their favorite songs as part of a Songwriter-In-The-Round performance.
Special guest for the evening is Erika Wollam Nichols, COO/GM of The Bluebird Cafe.

Participants Include:
Matraca Berg
The recipient of 13 BMI Country Awards, one BMI Pop Award and co-writer of the 1997 CMA Song of the Year, “Strawberry Wine,” Matraca Berg is a gifted songwriter and recording artist whose work has touched the hearts of millions. She had her first number one song at 18, first GRAMMY nomination at 22, and was among the youngest nominees for induction to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, before being inducted in 2008. In addition to being a talented singer with five albums to her credit, Matraca has written mega hits with Trisha Yearwood, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, and Randy Travis, among many other superstars.

Jeff Hanna
Jeff Hanna is a GRAMMY, CMA, and two-time BMI award winning singer/guitarist/producer. Hanna is a founding member of the incomparable Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, a group often cited as a catalyst for an entire movement in Country Rock and American Roots music. Their groundbreaking album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, was inducted into the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry as well as the GRAMMY Hall of Fame. In addition to his role in the legendary band, in 2006, Jeff was awarded the GRAMMY for Best Country Song for “Bless The Broken Road,” which was recorded by country superstars Rascal Flatts and also earned him his second BMI Award. His songs have garnered millions of performances as they continue to be played worldwide.

Jim Lauderdale
Jim Lauderdale is a multiple GRAMMY and Americana Music Association Award-winning musician and one of the most respected artists working the Americana, Bluegrass and Country music communities today. His record Buddy and Jim [2013], which he wrote and recorded with longtime friend and collaborator Buddy Miller, was nominated this year for a GRAMMY in the Best Americana Album category and several Americana Music Awards, a show which he has hosted since 2002.
Lauderdale has always stayed true to his North Carolina roots but is influenced from the experience of his travels. He first immersed himself in the early country music scenes of both New York City and Los Angeles before breaking through in Nashville as a songwriter. He has helped pave the way of the current Americana Movement recording records and writing songs that cross genres from country, pop, roots, rock, folk and bluegrass.

Lauderdale, a master songwriter, has had his work recorded by artists such as Patty Loveless, Shelby Lynne, Solomon Burke, The Dixie Chicks and George Strait, who has had numerous hits with Jim’s songs. Lauderdale’s music has been featured regularly on the ABC hit show Nashville, and he has several tracks on the soundtrack of the successful film Pure Country.
Lauderdale is often called upon as a player and has toured with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rhonda Vincent and Elvis Costello. He also co-hosts a weekly radio show on SiriusXM with Buddy Miller called “The Buddy & Jim Show,” which NPR’s Fresh Air described as “…highly entertaining…” Lauderdale is also the host of the popular Music City Roots each week from The Factory at Franklin, near Nashville, TN.

He frequently collaborates with legends like Ralph Stanley, Elvis Costello and Robert Hunter and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist with dozens of studio releases, including his latest I’m A Song which is Lauderdale’s latest country endeavor, his 26th album to date.

Tift Merritt
“I’ve always had a taste for traveling alone,” Tift Merritt sings in the title track of her fifth album. This time around, she got to prove it, “calling the shots myself and letting myself go wherever I needed to go” at a point in time when she was a free agent without label or manager. But the song does also conclude that “everybody here is traveling alone,” a realization that places as much value on community as iconoclasm. And Merritt put together her “dream cast” of fellow travelers to play on Traveling Alone, which found its happy home at her new label, Yep Roc. The road less taken doesn’t preclude good company.

The New Yorker has called Merritt “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry,” a standard upholding that got underway in earnest with Bramble Rose, the 2002 solo debut that put her on the Americana map forever. As her sophomore album, Tambourine, was followed by Another Country and See You on the Moon, Merritt found acclaim coming not just from critics and awards orgs but her own heroes, like Emmylou Harris, who marveled that Merritt “stood out like a diamond in a coal patch.” Now a leading lady in her own right, Merritt is hardly one to hog the spotlight. She engages in dialogue with fellow artists of all disciplines on her public radio broadcast and podcast “The Spark With Tift Merritt,” bringing in fellow sojourners ranging from Patty Griffin and Rosanne Cash to Rick Moody and Nick Hornby (who devoted a chapter to Merritt in his 31 Songs book).

Merritt has released five studio albums to date and was nominated for a GRAMMY for “Country Album of the Year” for 2004’s Tambourine, which was also nominated for Americana Music Association awards “Album of the Year” in 2005. That same year she was also nominated for AMA’s “Artist of the Year.” Two songs have also been nominated as AMA’s “Song of the Year”: 2005’s “Good Hearted Man” and 2008’s “Broken.” Merritt was born in Houston but her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina soon after where he grew up and attending the nearby university of Chapel Hill.

Moderated by Steven Heller
Producer, composer, and engineer, Steven Heller, has earned three GRAMMY Awards, five GRAMMY nominations, as well as a number of national awards for his music and recordings. His work encompasses music for artists, film, television, other media. Steven has secured options for feature film scripts as editor and producer. His produced and written story projects have garnered several GRAMMY nominations.

Heller’s clients include MTV, 20th Century Fox, Miramax, Rhythm and Hues, National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio International (PRI), and many others. He has served as music supervisor and producer for the Miramax film, “The Journey of August King,” and composed and produced music for the film. He has also composed, orchestrated, and adapted the music package for the Animal Planet Network, a division of Discovery Network, Inc., as well as scored numerous award-winning films, including features, documentaries, and children’s films garnering numerous Telly and Addy Awards for television and radio commercial music compositions.

Heller has also been honored with Golden CASE Awards, three American Library Association Notable Recording Awards, several NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors) Awards, Parent’s Choice Gold Awards, National Association of Parents’ Publications Awards. Heller is based in Asheville, NC.

Erika Wollom Nichols
President/COO of The Bluebird Café, Erika Wollom Nichols oversees all operations including marketing, sponsorship and brand development of The Bluebird Café name. She is also co-director of the Tin Pan South Songwriters festival. Past experience: Director of Development for NSAI, handling fundraising, marketing and community relations and VP of Marketing & Community Outreach at The Country Music Hall of Fame. She served on the Board of Leadership Music (2007-2010), and currently serves on the board of the ACLU of Tennessee and Folk Alliance International. She received her BA in philosophy from Belmont University and her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.