I Am the Warrior by Holly Knight

Author:Holly Knight [Knight, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637584408
Publisher: Permuted Platinum
Published: 2022-09-26T13:14:38+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“Well Done, Young Lady!” (Rod Stewart)

Los Angeles, 1985

“I want to feel the breathless end that you come to every night.”

(“Love Touch” performed by Rod Stewart)

Rod Stewart was many things: superstar, character, mischief-maker, soccer player, blond-lover, instigator, storyteller, and, for me, something of a traitor.

Most of my stories start with a phone call and this one came from Stiefel Management.

“Please hold for Arnold,” the woman on the other end said before putting me on hold.

“Hi Holly. It’s Arnold Stiefel, nice to talk to you.” I had no clue who he was or why he was calling. Then he said, “I manage Rod Stewart.”

This is the point where I realized I had reached a new level. My name was getting around in the industry, I was part of the conversation when it came to matching writers with recording artists, and fortuitously, I’d been part of a conversation with Rod Stewart. That blew my mind. Rod was rock ’n’ roll royalty, right there in the upper stratosphere with Tina.

“Rod’s working on a new record and wants to meet with you about possibly writing together.”

“I’d love to.”

“Can you come up to our office sometime this week?”

“Of course!”

Writing for famous artists was more difficult than you might imagine. It was always a fraught guessing game trying to figure out what they might need at any point in their career. There was usually a list of things to consider: What was their vocal range and the keys they liked to sing in? What was being written about them in the trades and tabloids? For instance, were they getting married, or going through a divorce, did they just meet someone new? It helped to stay one step ahead of them because then I could pitch them an idea that was more likely to resonate with them. And finally, how far outside of the artist’s box should I try to venture? After all, they were calling me for fresh ideas.

Cowriting with a famous artist had its risks too. On the one hand, if we wrote a song together, the chances of it ending up on their record increased because they were one of the writers. For them, that was a huge incentive. They’d have a writer’s credit and make money from their share of the music and the publishing. However, if they didn’t end up recording it, then I’d be stuck with a song that had their name on it, and that could be the kiss of death. No other recording artist wanted to touch it after that, the logic being, “If so-and-so didn’t cut it, it probably wasn’t strong enough, so why should I record it?” I already had quite a few songs like that in what I referred to as my boneyard, songs that would probably never see the light of day.

In preparation for our meeting, I cancelled my plans for the next few days and hunkered down in my studio. Recently I had bought something called a plasma globe, a large, round glass ball that generated electrical currents inside.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.