The Key West Songwriter's Festival kicks off on Wednesday, May 10th! I'm honored to be part of it again this year! It is the largest festival of its type in the world! Last year there were over 230 songwriters from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia involved!
In 2016 at The Cork and Stogie we had artists stop by spontaneously and play! What a great time that was!
This year there's another independent songwriters event hosted by Ben Solove featuring a long list of local performers.
This is all good stuff as it helps turn Key West into a songwriter's Mecca for a week! I'd love it if Key West could have a place where songwriters could thrive year round, instead of one week a year.
Several years ago I was in advanced discussions with a publishing company C.E.O. and also a former Key West resident who had a lot of business connections in town.
The idea, in a nutshell, was that we would build a studio here in the lower Keys that artists and songwriters could come, hang out, write songs, record music. It would be kind of like the studio the AIR Rolling Stones built in Montserrat. Everyone from The Stones, to Paul McCartney, The Police, you name it, went there! Regretfully a volcano was also deciding it was time to blow off some steam and that was the end of that.
With the idea I had, a publishing company could have sent some songwriters here on a project to write some songs, potentially for themselves, or another artist. With the current wave of island music based on County, it really makes a lot of sense. Like AIR Studio, artists from around the world could also come and do as they did at AIR. The advantage here is that there is no volcano to deal with, plus, for US based artists, there are no passports required.
In addition, we would set up a small bar where the visiting artists could come and play to the public. A small hole in the wall where the main focus was on songwriting and songwriters.
Before we could put it all together, the publishing executive left the business and Michael, with the business connections, regretfully passed away.
It really is a very progressive idea. If someone is interested in looking into it, please contact me!
By the way, I'm scheduled to play on Saturday, May 13th 1 – 2 pm at Turtle Kraals. If you're in town please stop by and support both a local and Trop artist!
I hope to see you there!
Thank you for reading my blog!
chrismusicnow@gmail.com
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