Songwriters unite at Chautauqua

[SoWalSally]

By Deborah Wheeler

RobRoy McGregor is an amateur songwriter and is looking for a little support in his craft.
McGregor founded Chautauqua Songwriters Association in an effort to organize area songwriters for support, discussion, sharing and learning.
Founded in September, the group has already grown to more than 500 members online from across the country. The interest expressed has been from a diverse population of songwriters. McGregor isn’t targeting any particular genre, he said, although his personal preference tends towards what he calls “Americana acoustical.”
“The people on the page are all learning from each other,” said McGregor.
McGregor is a waiter at Southern Café and a volunteer DJ at Seaside’s radio station. He would like to have songwriters perform on the air live when he is hosting.
“Streaming live is the way things are going,” he said. “I see it going to online radio live through myspace.com. It’s what modern media is going to.”
McGregor wants to be a part of the movement as the DJ of the live Web cast from a Web site he would build for musicians.
“I like organizing people,” he said.
He believes his training as a lighting and fi lm tech in Knoxville, Tenn., will help him with the project.
McGregor also hopes to find enough local songwriters to meet in person on a regular basis. If a local group can be organized, he wants the group to work through the workbook, “Successful Lyric Writing,” by Sheila Davis.
He also envisions the group selecting a venue once a month and having open-mike night.
To ignite interest, Mc-Gregor is working on organizing a gathering of songwriters in 2007 at Lake DeFuniak.
“It would be open to anyone who has a pencil and piece of paper and something on their heart they want to express,” he said. McGregor may be contacted through myspace.
com/chautauquasongwriters, where he invites other songwriters to share their
stories.

[JohnnyB]

I'll drop him a line.... some of us have talked about having a songwriters convention of sorts in SoWal....