Concert lifts veil on creative process

SANDPOINT — Songwriting comes from a deep, secret place. Or it springs to life as part of an oft-used and systematic creative process. That is, when it’s not inspired by a coincidental turn of phrase or a serendipitous string of chord changes that fall under a guitarist’s hands by chance.

In other words, songs come together in ways that are as different as the people who write them.

On Sat., Nov. 14, six songwriters with Sandpoint roots will take the stage at the Panida Theater to share their tunes and how they were crafted in a performance called, “Songwriters’ Circle: The Heart of the Matter.”

The idea for the concert came to local bass player Ted Bowers as he watched similar performances on a popular live music program.

“I saw a couple of songwriters’ circles on Austin City Limits and really liked the interplay between them,” the musician said, explaining that the featured artists alternately swapped songs and stories about the writing process. “I’ve always thought that, with all the talent in this town, Sandpoint would be a perfect place for this.”

Bowers’ first task was to whittle down the list of candidates to a workable size. Fortune and performance calendars were on his side, as several of the artists he wanted to feature were scheduled to be out of town on the concert date.

Saturday’s show will include songwriters Emily Baker, Dennis Coats, Josh Hedlund, Charley Packard, Beth Pederson and James Richard.

For Packard — a veteran writer with several CDs of original songs, a history of published music and an album contract with CBS Records before he left California for North Idaho in the late-1970s — song-catching is often as simple as listening to words and music as they float by on the wind.

“I’m easily inspired,” he said. “By other songwriters, a good poetic sentence or pickin’ my Givens guitar.”

Beth Pederson is another Sandpoint writer with an admirable repertoire of original music, both with songwriting partner Cinde Borup and as a solo artist after Cinde passed away. She, too, collects ideas for songs as they pop up in the world around her.

“I suppose it’s a process of sorts,” Pederson said. “I jot down phrases, thoughts that come to me — usually on little scraps of paper and often times when I’m driving!

“Then, at some point, I sit down with them and try to pull something together.”

Longtime songwriter Dennis Coats has been recording and publishing his original work since the 1960s, and now captures and copyrights the music in his own studio under his own name. With considerably more than 100 songs in his CD catalog, Coats no longer recalls whether words or music lead the creative process.

“Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Nobody knows, you pullin’ my leg?” he rattled off in lyrical fashion. “Can’t muzzle the puzzle when the words come by; can’t stop a bird from singin’ a song that makes you cry.”

Emily Baker and Josh Hedlund represent the next generation of songwriters who call Sandpoint home. Both have appeared regularly as part of the local music scene — a venue they use as a soundstage for original music.

For Baker, the expressive milieu of everyday life — with its emotional ups and downs — offers inspiration for new songs.

“Both situations cause creativity and I usually like to mix a bit of the difficult and the hopeful together to express a sense of wholeness,” she said. “I think life is like that — beautiful and terrible all at once and hardly ever are things all good or all bad, they just are — and we do our best to make sense of it and move forward.

“I just happen to like to sing and write music as a part of my process.”

Hedlund has had songs that sparked quickly to life and others that were stone-chiseled over a period of years. His most recent compositions reflect an approach to writing that falls somewhere in between.

“I try and put more thought into what I’m saying nowadays, but I try not to over think it, either,” Hedlund said. “Over thinking can ruin it for me sometimes.”

James Richard, who now lives with his family in Washington State, developed a local following in the late-1980s and early ‘90s as the leader of Jamie and the G Spots — a band that focused on his original songs. On the musical side, Richards draws from sources as varied as classic jazz and Tin Pan Alley, with a hint of Motown thrown in for flavoring. Lyrically, he bounces easily from puppeteer to ringmaster to eavesdropper, keeping the listener hooked with fleet-footed wordplay that propels his songs along.

Vocally, he long ago perfected the ability to sing intricate melodies with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Throwing objectivity aside for a moment, this writer sorely misses his presence and the madly skewed creative influence he brought to Sandpoint.

On the topic of whether songwriting is an art or a craft, Pederson suggested that there is a bit of both involved. Coats agreed, going so far as to create off-the-cuff lyrics to reflect his thoughts.

“Songwriting is both art and craft,” he offered. “You could say:

The waters flow and shape the rocks,

As time rewinds the broken clocks,

You close your eyes and block your heart,

Some other thief will steal my art.’

“Or your craft,” Coats continued, “might edit all of that down to this:

Flow waters flow,

Burn fires burn,

You’re gone for now, I’ll wait my turn.’”

Charley Packard — a songwriter known for distilling the big picture until his work finds its muscle in the essence of things — encapsulated his response in fewer words.

“Art sounds better,” he said.

“Songwriters’ Circle: The Heart of the Matter” will benefit human rights education activities in Bonner County and is sponsored by the local non-profit organization, Foundation for Human Rights Action and Advocacy.

Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 for students and seniors and available at Eichardt’s Pub, Eve’s Leaves, Pedro’s and at the door the evening of the concert.