I Think I’m Going to Give Up Being a DJ and Become a Songwriter
I was listening to a 70's country channel on Alexa this morning. It took me back to a lot of songs in my younger years. I just wondered how much songwriters made when they wrote a hit song.
Some of the artists I've been hearing as I write this include, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. If you summed up country music in the 70's I imagine those four had their fare share of hits. Maybe a few of them were written by others but for some, they were graced also with the ability to write their own songs.
I know of some artists that started out recording music trying to get their songs up the charts and on the radio. For some it worked, and for others it didn't pan out so well. A few artists that come to mind that started out recording and then turned to pretty much all songwriting include Sonny Throckmorton and Dean Dillon.
When you hear hits songs by Merle Haggard, The Oak Ridge Boys, John Conlee, and others, you can probably thank Throckmorton. More than a 1,000 songs were recorded by various artists. He was chosen as Songwriter of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association in 1978, 1979, and 1980.
For Dean Dillon, he had a couple of hits songs in the 80's, but went on to write so many more for others. I don't know what George Strait would've done for material if it wasn't for DiIlon. Some of the hit songs he wrote for King George include “The Chair,” “Nobody in His Right Mind Would’ve Left Her,” “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You,” “Ocean Front Property,” and “Famous Last Words of a Fool” along with others.
According to the website nashvillesongwriters.com:
Songwriters are paid via 3 royalty streams:Today, the current rate is 9.1 cents (typically split with co-writers and publishers). Performance Royalty – A songwriter receives a performance royalty when their song is performed on terrestrial broadcast radio, in a live performance venue, or via online streaming services.
According to a quote from celebritynetworth.com:
An average hit song on the radio today will earn the songwriter $600-800,000 in performance royalties.
That does it, I'm going to start writing songs!