by senior contributor Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
With DC heading back to work post-Labor Day, some were singing because of end of a summer slump, but a much better reason was trying to keep up with some amazing songwriters at the annual Songwriter Showcase hosted by the National Music Publishers’ Association and their S.O.N.G.S. Foundation.
David Israelite
NMPA President David Israelite welcomed a heavy hitting crowd of supporters to the rooftop of 101 Constitution Ave. to enjoy the autumn weather and the view of the freshly revamped Capitol Dome that is finally emerging from months of scaffolding. Champions like Congressman Darrell Issa and Sen. Patrick Leahy made the rounds among the rooftop crowd in support of the foundation.
Kara DioGuardi
S.O.N.G.S. (Supporting Our Next Generation of Songwriters) is a foundation created by NMPA to encourage young songwriters to embrace their passion and pursue careers in the music industry, even in spite of ongoing debates about compensation and royalties…and the folks involved would know. Board members for the group include Steven Tyler, Jewel, and Kara DioGuardi, who was on hand with a few other standout songwriters to share annecdotes about the writing process, and sing some of those hits they helped to pen.
Kara DioGuardi
“You probably remember her as the smart judge from American Idol,” joked Israelite about DioGuardi as she took the stage. With more than 50 hits under her belt for Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Celine Dion and many more, Kara is a force who knows the highs and lows of songwriting. She shared that the format of these showcases is “we usually tell a dumb story” to introduce a song, and while she prefaced it as “I hope this isn’t that boring”–her story about writing with Pink was anything but. The short version is that they met and had zero chemistry trying to work together, and in an effort to bridge the divide, Kara and Pink turned to wine, and while drunk, ironically wrote the hit song “Sober.”
Scott Stapp
Scott Stapp, well known as front-man for the band Creed said “I’ve gone through times in my life where I haven’t been myself” and that sometimes it was depression and sometimes you’re not sober and that one of his best known songs was about the process of coming out of that darkness and getting back to yourself. Cue, “My Sacrifice.”
MoZella
MoZella is no stranger to channeling her own feelings into song to turn “a really bad thing into a really good thing” and after admittedly crying the whole session while working with her co-authors, the Miley Cyrus anthem “Wrecking Ball” was born.
Ross Golan
Ross Golan took it into an alternate direction though and wanted to share some comic misadventures as he wrote one of his best known songs. While setting out to write a song for Adele, Ross and a friend couldn’t quite find their groove and one day after being displaced in the recording studio to sitting in the lobby, the two stumbled onto a song about “how my wife and I don’t go out, and now that will really put this song in context….and Adele didn’t cut it” —that song, turned into the Flo Rida hit, “My House.”
Take a listen to some clips from these musical masters that represent the final product of the songwriting journey:
