Smoke From A Distant Fire

[_Laurie_ 9]

Laurie,

Re: Smoke From A Distant Fire:

In the spring of 1974 Ed Sanford and I had just signed a publishing deal with Chappel Music. They gave us a nice advance and a weekly stipend and for a couple of unknown writers, this was a rare deal. Ed and our friend Steven Stewart (co-writer on Smoke...) were sharing one half of an old duplex in Hollywood at the time. I used to drop by and hang out, write or whatever, almost on a daily basis. Now Steven was and aspiring classical guitarist at the time. He used to stay up 'til the wee hours, sometimes daybreak, bent over his music stand practicing his scales, or some classical peice.

He was driven to become a great player. I was over one morning as Ed was just waking up and Steven hadn't been to bed yet. Ed was complaining about not getting any sleep and barked at Steven "when are you gonna stop wasting your time on that classical crap and write something that will make you some money." Steven picked up his guitar immediately and started playing what I thought was a really cool R&B type rhythm and replied with "Anybody can write that crap:" I said "apparently you just did and went straight to the piano and embellished on his idea. While going through some old song ideas in my notebook I always carried, I found one that actually was the title of a poem that Ed had written while in college. I extracted the Title because it seemed to be a perfect fit for the chorus idea I had and that all sort of amalgamated into "Smoke From A Distant Fire".

Basically, the song started as a joke and that joke is still making us money to this very day.

I love songwriting I guess because I've always enjoyed puzzles, crosswords, anagrams and the like. It's different every time and I still couldn't tell you exactly where they come from. I think many of the great melodies are universal melodies that exist out in the cosmos somewhere and certain people have the knack of reaching out with their minds, hearts or spirits to bring them back to us.

Stay well and in touch,

Johnny Townsend

http://www.JohnTown.com

http://www.RenegadesOfSouthernRock.com

http://www.myspace.com/JohnnyTownsend

From: Layla19619@aol.com

Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 19:38:15 EST

To: JTRecords@JohnTown.com

Subject: Hey Johnny

[Uncle Joe 0]

Laur, have you submitted this to SF?

[_Laurie_ 9]

yeah, Peaches is gonna take care of it for me....pretty cool huh?

[Uncle Joe 0]

Yep, and a great song.

[RonJonSurfer 15]

yeah, Peaches is gonna take care of it for me....pretty cool huh?

Too cool Laurie, nice stuff..

[Uncle Joe 0]

So Laur, then the song was about you?

[Shawna 1]

I'm confused. Do you know him, Laurie? Or did you just randomly write to him to ask about the song?

[_Laurie_ 9]

No, Shawna, I don't know him...I just decided to write and ask him about the song.

[Shawna 1]

that's almost more cool, then, that he took the time to write to an otherwise anonymous person to explain in such detail about the song. That makes this guy good people in my book.

[_Laurie_ 9]

He really is good people...I wrote back to thank him and he replied again...and said "Your Very Welcome"....and Peace!

[Carl 22]

Laurie-

I'm glad you were able to connect with Johnny and get this great song information. I've found that many songwriters have a passion for what they do and are great storytellers.

It was good of him to share this info and we'll have it on in our next update - probably a few days from now. Thanks for getting the goods.

[Steel2Velvet 0]

That was a good thought, Laurie.

We all ought to attempt contacting a favorite musician and start a thread with the resultant replies, if any. I'm going to try.

[Shawna 1]

I'm wondering how RonJon's attempt at contacting Michael Nesmith went...

[_Laurie_ 9]

thanks Carl, S2V and Shawna.....it is a pretty good idea to see who you can contact...if they have a website...it's pretty easy actually....and hopefully if they are good people like Shawna says, they will reply.