All Hail Mighty Marla, The Kid's Song Queen!

Here's my children's songwriting friend Marla Lewis, from the Great American Song Contest website, where they hung her photo right under the words "Grand Prize Winner"! That's right, her children's song, "Mighty Jackie (The Strikeout Queen)," took grand prize! (And she landed two other songs in the "Outstanding Achievement" category in children's further down the page, too!)

My song, "1907," can be found if you scroll to the bottom, click "Honor Awards" and scan the "Top Finalists" in the Contemporary Acoustic/Folk category. That's right, I figured the judges might scratch their heads a bit at the stunning depth of sophistication I achieved in this historical ditty about Oklahoma's statehood if I claimed it to be children's fare, so I plopped it in "Contemporary Folk" just to see what would happen.

Meanwhile my friend Marla was busy proving that stunning depths of sophistication can be reached and appreciated in children's music! 

I've had conversations with many folks speculating whether a song from the children's category in a big-time song competition would/could ever rise to the very top. It just doesn't often seem that our genre commands that kind of respect. 

I mean when they (meaning your random representative song competition) do stuff like lump us into a "special category" with "Patriotic" and "Gospel" and "Mountain Yodeling" like so many apples and oranges and cumquats in a bin, it makes you wonder. Do they really give the best of the children's songs any serious consideration for grand prize winner? 

I guess sometimes they do, and Marla proved it! You go girl!!

For my own part I'm very pleased to have received an "Honor Award" in Contemporary Folk, but I think I'll stick with my native genre from now on! Maybe given enough deep and sophisticated children's entries we'll earn a whole new category all to ourselves one day.

Free Song / New Podcast Site!

Man, I've been working hard on this all week, and here it is!!

My new song, "1907", is now available as a free download.

Not only that, I've moved my podcast to a new location and posted a new edition about the making of the song.

You can find it all here: Monty Harper Songcast

"1907" is a musical celebration of Oklahoma's statehood! Download it, share it with your friends, and celebrate!

Recording Stephanie Jackson at The Music Group

Wow, I had a fun afternoon! I was at The Music Group in Edmond for a recording session with guitarist Stephanie Jackson. She recorded arrangements for two of my songs, "1907," and another one I'll tell you about later.

I enjoyed being the producer! All I had to do was throw in an opinion now and again. It was amazing to sit back watch Stephanie and the engineer, LG, working together on my tracks. They've worked together a lot; in fact Stephanie is in the middle of recording a Latin music CD with him right now.

LG's fingers flew over the computer keyboard, editing, playing back, and recording, while Stephanie's fingers flew over the guitar frets, playing the heck out of my music! They communicated with half sentences, hand gestures, numbers, and I suspect psychic wavelengths. The room was filled with fragments of music as for a solid hour they made improvements upon the original basic recording. Their concentration and focus was palpable. I contributed the occasional "sounds good," or "the first way," or "can I hear that again?" but mostly I just watched and listened.

In the end all those little bits of music fit together to make a seamless whole. It was very cool to watch.

Now I just need to add vocals and mix! (Sounds like a cake recipe or something, doesn't it?)

The first photo above, taken by LG, is me, Stephanie, and Evalyn's stuffed buddy "Bobbles." I think Evalyn was wishing she could be there, so she sent Bobbles as her proxy. The second photo shows Stephanie in the recording booth, with LG's reflection while he works the computer.

SeptemberFest

Here I am working on a new song called "1907." I'll bet you can guess what it's about, especially if you live in Oklahoma. That's right, I'm still writing songs for our centennial! I hope to be able to share this one with you soon.

"What happened to 'Born to Do Science'?" you ask. Well, it has always been my great weakness that I have difficulty in choosing a focus. I guess I don't have to be quite so dramatic about it. I can just say my current window of opportunity to work on the science project has closed. I need to focus on my Oklahoma program right now. I'll get back to the other when I can.

Come see me at SeptemberFest at the governor's mansion in OKC on Saturday (9/1/07)! I perform at 1:30, and I'll be singing some of my Oklahoma songs. The event lasts from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, with all kinds of cool stuff going on to celebrate our statehood!