They Right the Songs

For Larry Thompson, scoring a smash song is not the priority it once was. He's in the NSAI chapter to pass along some of what he learned in Nashville, while getting feedback on his songs and discovering tunes for his new publishing company, Destiny in Song. "My whole attitude has changed," he says. "If I get a cut, that's great. But I wrote my first song in 1970, and when you do something like this for thirty years, it's because you love it. It's not for the money. [Songwriting] is like therapy for me."

NSAI member Rayme Caldwell joined the group with a similar attitude and the goal of simply improving her craft and finding musicians to perform with. But her songwriting goals are changing now that one of her tunes (a co-write with her partner, Larry Lagerberg) is set to appear on an indie release from a local country newcomer. "I can now say that somebody has recorded something of mine," she says. "I'm a member of BMI now, and I can get royalties, however small they might be. It's a start." It's also fueling a few fantasies. "I had a dream that Faith Hill heard me singing in a karaoke bar the other night," she says, laughing. "It was the silliest thing, but it kept me up all night."

Anthony Camera

Hail to the chief: NSAI president Randi Perkins.

Details

7 p.m. Monday, February 5, 303-695-8628

Academy of the Arts, 455 South Platte River Drive

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Meanwhile, Perkins is entertaining similar visions of brushes with the bigtime. "I have no doubt that I will have a song on a record if I continue on this path," he says. "Because I know how it gets done. I also think everybody in these workshops can do the same thing. And if I can do it for myself, I can make it happen a little easier for others." In the meantime, he's fully aware of the hurdles he's facing -- and the potential costs to his wife and eight-year-old child as he devotes less energy to accounting work and spends more time with a different sort of numbers. "I just hope it doesn't hurt them in the short run," he says. "But maybe this is going to be important to them in the long run, that I do what I feel I was put here to do. Standing up for what you believe in is important.

"I feel like I have a calling," Perkins adds. "I want to make money at this, but there's more to it than that. I feel like I can affect other people with my songs and maybe affect other songwriters. Maybe it's futile, I don't know, but it's something I feel I need to do."