CAYUCOS, Calif. (CN) — When I interviewed Steve Key in 2012 about his local songwriter showcase on California’s Central Coast, he told me he especially enjoyed providing a forum for older musicians.
“I run into a lot of people in their 50s and 60s who put the music aside for 30 years so they can have the day job or family,” he told me. “And then they wake up at 50 or 60 and they say, ‘Wait a second — I still enjoy creating, and I still enjoy performing.’”
More than a decade after that interview, I’m sitting behind a microphone and facing a crowd — something I’ve never done — and I realize I have become one of those people. And, as I prepare to perform an original Christmas tune during the Songwriters at Play contest, Key is working the sound system.
While the music industry has changed considerably since artists like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell topped the charts, Key continues to advocate for unknown musicians like myself who write their own songs.
“I love original music,” Key told me recently. “I really like the creative process.”
Key, a former journalist, is a longtime songwriter himself. His tune “33 45 78 (Record Time)” was recorded by Grammy-winning country artist Kathy Mattea in 1992. And he has opened for critically acclaimed acts such as Taj Mahal, Richard Thompson and James McMurtry.
While much of his efforts in New York and Nashville were focused on his own songwriting, he eventually moved to the Central Coast to be near family. There he began creating opportunities for other songwriters, culminating with his Songwriters at Play series, which launched in 2009. The series has featured numerous showcases that feature both traveling musicians and local performers of various skill levels, along with his current main focus — two tournament-style songwriting contests, which occur in both Cayucos and Solvang.
Each contest round features 10 songwriters who perform two songs apiece, with a chance to win prizes each round and an overall cash prize.
Like the showcases, the contests feature a mix of talent — from relative beginners to well-honed gigging musicians, who have come from places like Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Wisconsin and more.
“Sometimes the touring performers are at the level where they blow everybody else away,” Key said. “But not always.”
When I was in the newspaper business, I wrote multiple stories on Key’s efforts. But when I transitioned from the newspaper business in 2016, I didn’t hear from Key for a few years.
And then I watched “Get Back,” Peter Jackson’s docuseries on the Beatles.
Watching the Fab Four write songs on camera, showing us how they created their masterpieces, I was inspired to write songs myself. And when I had written close to a dozen, I thought — what the heck — maybe I should perform these somewhere.
Maybe.
I had written some songs in my 20s, but I was really always a drummer — the guy who sat and played in the background while others sang out front. Over the years, I did a few minor gigs (In the 90s, my band Bad Habits once had to play “Achy Breaky Heart” three times during a wedding!), but mostly music took a back seat as I focused on family and career.
Yet, as I became a “man of a certain age,” “Get Back” continued to call to me. And after honing my songs, I finally asked Key if I could perform a 4-song set at one of his winery showcases.
Since I’d never performed original songs in public before, I asked two musician friends to accompany me.
Performing before a small but attentive winery crowd, I was definitely nervous, but the performance wasn’t horrible; It might have even been OK.
