I realise the previous stories may a bit name droppy so this one will be a bit of an antidote to that. I have written my fair share of duffers so let’s have a listen to one now shall we. When I quit being in a rock band and decided to concentrate on songwriting it was a whole different ball game, writing and pitching songs to artists than writing with and for a band you’re a member of.

The two demos here represent a couple of firsts on that journey. The opening track is the first time an artist recorded one of my songs locally and the next track is the first time an artist cut one of my tracks for national release. There is a common thread between the two as well and that is that I began to notice that producers were sticking pretty close to my demos. I capitalised on this by being very careful with arrangements and production ideas. I couldn’t compete with the high quality studios they used but I could give them a blue print for their production.

I don’t have the original demo for song one close to hand but it will have been recorded on my Akai 2 track. It’s called “Ways of Making You Talk” and the artists are the Debonaires. What on earth was I thinking of: “When we get right down to the thumbscrews, fix your feet so that you can’t walk, Stick bamboo shoots up your nose, we have ways of making you talk”. The next song is better; Messing Around, the demo sung by the Caffrey Bros followed by the actual Bruce Ruffin version as released by RCA records in 1980.

 Ways of Making You Talk – Messin Around by Stevie_T