Songwriting with a Legend

Bill Dees, from his website, billdees.com 

"Our next act is a surprise, and we don't really have time for him, but I don't think that I can say no to him since he shares songwriting credits for some 70 songs with Roy Orbison, including 'Pretty Woman.'  Please welcome Mr. Bill Dees!" 

The rain had let up a bit just before Mark Bilyeu introduced him to the small crowd at the Spokane Songwriters Festival last spring.  My ears and eyes snapped to attention when he made his announcement, and I watched this famous man perform, marveling that I had never heard of him.  My sense of history swelled as I realized that this voice was woven into those songs I had grown up with; it was so much like Roy Orbison's, yet with its own sweet power.

"What was it like to work with Roy?"  I had stationed myself at the edge of the stage, to seize the first chance to compliment him.  My question must have caught his attention, and in no time we were chatting in a realm I had never before pushed myself into.  "You must have been a great collaborator.  Would you ever consider writing a song with me?  I've always dreamed of writing with someone like you!"  He gave me his e-mail address and I bought two of his albums.  Before we parted his words were already flying around my brain, pushy thoughts organizing  themselves into a theme.

I e-mailed him; he sent me his phone number.  I finished out the school year and then made arrangements to see him.  I had written some pieces of a song, based on what he had said about being in Roy Orbison's shadow, about being so successful and yet relatively unknown.  Those words became this part of the song we crafted together:

     There's no accounting for the good that can come

     When you don't care for credit or beating your own drum

     That's what you said and how you made your name

     You chose the song over the fame

I discovered that first day that it wasn't easy to stay focused on songwriting with this teller of classic tales, this dropper of famous names.  He told me how the opening words and melody of "Pretty Woman" had come to him as he watched Roy's wife Claudette come down the stairs asking her husband for money.  He told me how the song was really "Oh Pretty Woman" and he showed me the plaques on his wall for the first five million airplays of the song.  But when we got going, he could improvise lyrics and a melody at the same time faster than I could write his ideas down.  I gave up after four exhausting hours and finally pulled the song into something coherent later on called "Who Gets the Credit? " It would be nearly the end of my summer before I had a chance to play it for him.

When I saw him again, I didn't think that he was too impressed with the song because he took me inside to play something for me at his piano.  "I've got these two pieces that I was thinking about putting together."  I was so absorbed that I hardly realized I was writing another song with him, and we stuck to it for hours.  Yes, I thought the two pieces went together great.  He had a few lines of a lyric.  It swayed.  It felt like something I had heard in the 50s, but it was just as new as it was comforting.  I suggested "Ask Me to Dance' and I helped push it into shape; we tossed pieces of lyrics back and forth as he sang.  When we had too many words or he couldn't read my writing, I sang just enough to cue him.

I had been excited about meeting him that first rainy day.  Then my wife had urged me to write more with him after our first working session, though I wasn't sure I could stand it.  Now my skepticism was overwhelmed by the shared energy of the process.  By the third session we needed to tackle the same song to work out some rhythmic problems and tinker with the lyrics.  Then, several hours into things I handed him a sheet of paper with a few lines I had written based on something he was always saying to me on the phone:

     It lies off the coastline of expectation

     It's hidden in the atmosphere of exploration

     It may not be the most comfortable fit

     But if you get a chance later on, take it

He picked up his guitar and improvised a melody in about three minutes, practically giggling with excitement.  We played what we had over and over and he told me this weird story about a highway patrolman pulling him over and saving him from heading too fast onto an icy hill.  I was looking for a direction for the song as I ran out of gas for that day.

I wrote one set of lyrics that didn't appeal to him,, so I threw them out and started again.  The fireworks really started when we got together again because we didn't agree on the direction of the song--him, a love song, me, no way.  Several visits later we compromised and just before Christmas we went into his studio to record a pre-demo demo, something to play for others so we can find out if anyone else is half as excited as we are. 

I'm over the starstruck stage and everything seems like it's all been a natural process till I step back and look at this; Bill Dees and I are songwriting partners, and he started talking about it before me.  We live almost two hours apart, which is a big problem.  We are fire and water together, and yet he seems so excited to write with me.  Apparently he has written with many people through the years and a number of people want to write with him now.  We share thirty years between us, him, of feeling lost in the shadow of his youthful success and me of struggling to find musical success.  He feels like he's just getting started at 67 while I feel like I'd better get started soon.  I'm growing like crazy through this and he's coming over in two days to work again, which got me to write two sets of lyrics just today.  He always want me to play "Who Gets the Credit?" before anything else, but I have to make him work on his piano part.  I have little idea where this is going, but I guess it's carpe diem.  I wish you the wisdom to recognize your openings in life.  And if you get a chance later on, take it!

Story copyright 2006 by Gerry Wass.  Lyrics copyright 2006 by Bill Dees and Gerry Wass.