Tennessee songwriting festival renews this week

Stunned that there wasn't already an Appalachian songwriters festival in East Tennessee, musician Cyndy Montgomery Reeves helped start one, Kenneth Burns reports for The Mountain Press, the daily newspaper for Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Now in its second year, the Smoky Mountains Songwriting Festival is scheduled to begin Thursday and run through Sunday in Gatlinburg. (Photo from festival website: Musicians performing at last year's event)

The event showcases amateur and professional musicians and features competitions in bluegrass, country, folk and rock, Burns writes. All live music is free. There are also workshops, which charge a fee, and cover areas such as how to write, pitch and demo a song, increasing your chances of getting a song cut, and co-writing.

Reeves was inspired to start the event after seeing a similar festival in Key West, Fla., Burns writes. She told Burns, "I love you, Jimmy Buffett, but how can you have a songwriters festival for 16 years, and I’m from East Tennessee, and I’ve never heard of one?” From there, Reeves helped preview the festival for city officials in 2011, before the first event was held last year. She told Burns, "It was very successful,. Everybody there enjoyed it. We broke even, and we started something we knew could be a great success.” (Photo by Kay Speer: Festival founder Cyndy Reeves)

One performer will be Marty Dodson, who has written songs recorded by Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Billy Currington, and Diamond Rio. Dodson told Burns, "It’s about putting a face behind the song. When people hear a song I wrote that Kenny Chesney did, they might feel like maybe he wrote it, or they don’t think about who wrote the song.” Dodson said songwriter festivals also can educate listeners about the nature of the music business. He told Burns, “If I’m downloading a song for free, here’s who I’m hurting, a real person with a family.” (Read more)