Songwriting Workshop with Gaye Adegbalola

In the creative process will focus on the content/lyrics (including the hook, word meanings, the rhyme, metaphors & similies, first lines, scene setting, etc.) and the form/music (the musical hook, intervals, chords, rhythm, structure, verses-bridge-refrains, etc).

The business portion of the workshop will cover copyrighting, publishing, shopping your songs, royalties (ASCAP, BMI, Sound Exchange, Harry Fox, etc.).

Participants are encouraged to bring in one of his/her original songs -- preferrably a song that is not fully realized. Hopefully there will be enough time hear and analyze some of these in an effort to "make 'em better."

Cost for the workshop is $35 and space is limited. Please respond to info@acousticblues.com - if you are planning to attend so we can make enough copies of the materials, which is plentiful.

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Gaye has written hundreds of songs. As the Washington Post has written, they are ". . .songs in which a liberated woman looks on love with the rueful eye of experience and the saving grace of good humor." Her keen observation skills and her lifetime of varied experiences allows her to touch on many topics – from hard hitting political tunes to songs of pure heartbreak and unadulterated sexuality. She loves taking a big story and telling it in 3 or 4 minutes. She also loves writing about contemporary issues in traditional blues form.

Gaye has written many ‘hits’ for Saffire –The Uppity Blues Women, including:
• The Middle Aged Blues Boogie which won a Blues Music Award (formerly the W. C. Handy Award) for blues song of the year in 1990, as well as:
• School Teacher's Blues
• No Need Pissin' On A Skunk
• Bitch With A Bad Attitude
• Silver Beaver
• How Can I Say I Miss You (When I Can't Get You to Leave)?
• Shake the Dew Off the Lily
• It's Alright for a Man to Cry
• On Gaye's solo recordings, her songs tend to be more topical:
• Nothing's Changed – about the civil rights struggle
• Nightmare – about incest
• Front Door Blues – about hiding homosexuality
• You Don't Have to Take It Like I Did – about domestic violence
• Lying Preacher Blues – about the hypocrisy of the church
• Bareback Rider – about safe sex
• Queer Blues – about her own struggle for acceptance
• Deja Vu Blues – comparing the struggle for civil rights with the
struggle for gay rights. And, her "audiobiographical" anthem:
• Big Ovaries, Baby, which is all about the empowerment of women.