The Songwriter's & Musician's Guide to Nashville

Writer's Digest Books

$18.95

Edited by Sherry Bond

By Paul Moffett

Are you on your way to Nashville with a song in your heart, a gleam in your eye and a vision of million-selling records as your guide? Better pick up this little volume first, Bucky, it'll save you a whole lot of trouble and missteps, not to mention the Yellow Pages in every public phone booth in Nashville.

Or, you can sashay on into town in blissful ignorance, convinced of your absolute musical genius and let the nice folks who make a very good living off the ignorant teach you the same lessons the hard way and at a much greater cost than the $18.95 this book will set you back.

Sherry Bond, publisher of the Country Chart Analyst, a Nashville songwriters' tipsheet, does an excellent job of detailing the basics and even some of the second-tier things an aspirant should know about the music business in Nashville before going. For those astute enough to read between the lines, even more information can be gleaned from this 169-page volume.

Like most other books about the music industry, this one contains several "chats" with people in the business who tell stories about how they made it or what they think about the business. The reader should pay close attention.

Bond not only gives general, valuable rules about how to act toward the business, how to package songs, what not to do, she also gets into such specifics as when to go and lays out a suggested one-week itinerary. Her warning about sharks is short and pointed and contains everything you need to know about how to spot one.

Nearly half the book is comprised of lists lists of publishers, record labels, producers, radio stations, showcase clubs, studios, restaurants, (yes, very important places, restaurants), associations, lawyers, tape duplicators, printers and just about any other music-related business you might need to find in the town. These lists alone are worth the price of the book.