Join me for this great conversation with singer-songwriter Bob Hillman. We chat about why reading is so important and why having a core song critique group can be the single most important thing! Bob shares a song he rewrote three times - changing it from being about an altercation in a Target parking lot to a love song about the night he met his wife. Bob also shares about some unexpected silver linings that have surfaced as a result of the pandemic.

Bob Hillman, a San Francisco singer/songwriter, is well into the second act of a career that began in the late 1990s in New York City, where he fell in with Jack Hardy’s long-running songwriting group, which met every Monday night in Greenwich Village to eat pasta and share new songs. Bob’s career flourished in the early 00s, then survived ten years of “real jobs,” and resumed in 2016. Bob’s most recent full-length album, Some of Us Are Free, Some of Us Are Lost, was released in April 2019. Bob has toured extensively with Suzanne Vega playing venues like the Fillmore Auditorium and Bowery Ballroom. Most recently, Bob wrote and recorded Inside & Terrified, a five-song EP written during and about the COVID-19 lockdown.

In today's conversation with singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke, we talk about how songs can evolve over time in terms of production, meaning, feel etc. (she even plays us an example!) We also chat about the "rules" of musical theater songwriting, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Taio Cruz and giving yourself song assignments! Join us for this uplifting conversation where Jonatha shares a little about her new album The Sweetwater Sessions as well as her revelations around songwriting, life and building community online.

Jonatha Brooke has co-written songs with Katy Perry and The Courtyard Hounds among others. She's also written for Disney films and numerous television shows including composing/performing the theme song for Dollhouse. In 2014, Brooke debuted her one woman musical and companion album My Mother Has Four Noses at the Duke Theater in New York City. The show ran for three months to rave reviews and was a critic's pick in the New York Times who called it "both funny and wrenching.”Formerly of the New England-based folk-rock duo The Story with Jennifer Kimball, Jonatha Brooke has been writing songs, making records, and touring since the early 90's. After four major label releases, she started her own independent label in 1999 and has since released nine more albums including her most recent The Sweetwater Sessions.

If you like today's episode, check out my conversation a few years back with Jonatha in Episode 6. In it, we talk about using songwriting as a survival tool in hard times, leaving some mystery in your lyrics and what you can learn about singing and melody writing from the way you speak.