Kathleen Hudson,
Telling Stories, Writing Songs



Publisher: UT Press
Released: 2001

(3 out of 5)

In Telling Stories, Writing Songs, Kathleen Hudson shares highlights from nearly two decades of interviews with Texas singer/songwriters, including legends like Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Floyd Tillman.

A professor of English at Schreiner College in Kerrville, Hudson's professional interest lies in songwriting as artistic creation. But as a lifelong Texas music enthusiast and founder of the Texas Heritage Music Foundation, there's also a strong current of simple fandom and a genuine eagerness to spend time with those who make possible the music she loves.

Hudson relays some fascinating conversations—perhaps none more captivating than Townes Van Zandt, who captures the agony and fleeting ecstasy of the tortured-soul-as-artist with his description of that elusive moment where everything just clicks:

"I'll tell you what it takes, darlin'. It takes like driving eight hundred miles, throwing away your whole family, your whole life, your liver, anything you've ever dreamt of except playing guitar and singing. You've ruined your whole life, and you get all the way up and then you hit that one note, and everything is okay."

Such moments, though, are few and far between. Most excerpted conversations center on the creative process in music, and most cover shared ground like the artists' definitions of "Texas music" and the degree of discipline each applies to the songwriting process.

As Hudson notes in the concluding Coda, "many of these conversations seem to overlap and many seem to repeat." That repetition reinforces the commonality of songwriting as a creative endeavor, but it also proves wearying.

Read in small snippets, though—perhaps no more than 3 or 4 interviews in a sitting—Telling Stories, Writing Songs is an enlightening exploration of the creative process in songwriting.