Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [16]
What a relief!
Still, things weren’t looking so great, as far as a planner like me was concerned. Let’s see, I was working to put Steven through school and help pay the bills while he developed as an artist. Now I was five months pregnant, and the recording company had been sold, so we had no recording contract, no future for me working, really, and pretty much a failed plan.
About this time, Steven decided not to go back to school in the fall so that he could concentrate more on doing concerts. He also went back to work at Opryland USA, a Nashville theme park where he’d worked in the summers. They quickly hired him back to do the Country Music USA show for three to five performances a day.
I’d waddle out there, very pregnant, and lie in the back row of the theater, singing right along while Steven impersonated various country greats. Little did I know that when I married Steven Curtis Chapman, I also married Lester Flatt, George Jones, Porter Wagoner, and an awesome clogger.
But down deep, I was afraid that clogging wasn’t going to get us very far.
6
Smoke Signals
Love and learn that’s what we will do
Love and learn through the flood and through the flame
This world will turn and the seasons will change
But there’s nothing we can’t get through
as long as we both hold on to
The hand of God and each other and
take a lifetime to love and learn
“Love and Learn”
Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman
I had always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. My childhood was full of memories of my mom always being there for us. Now my prayer was that God would make a way for me to do the same for our children.
The only problem was that we needed my salary from the hospital in order to do a few things like eat and live.
Eventually, Steven met Greg Nelson, who produced Sandi Patty at the time. Greg believed in Steven and his ability to communicate. He introduced him to Lorenz Creative Services and talked to a few record labels in town.
We were excited.
They all passed on Steven, saying they loved his writing but weren’t interested in him as an artist.
We were crushed.
The Christian music business was going through cutbacks. White male artists were a dime a dozen, so the interest level was not high.
Greg sent Steven’s stuff to a company based in California at the time, Sparrow Records. Billy Ray Hearn Sr., Sparrow’s CEO, didn’t want Steven as an artist. But he was interested in his writing.
Steven continued writing for Lorenz and working hard. To earn extra money he would stay up all night and do what he called $100 demos. These were other writers’ songs that needed to be recorded so that they could be pitched to other artists to record. Steve would do the bass, vocals, keyboard, everything – and he got paid $100 a song.
Somehow, some of these demos ended up back out in California at Sparrow Records. Billy Ray Hearn Sr., who passed on Steven the first time, was walking past someone’s office one day and heard Steven’s voice.
“Who is that singing on that demo?” he asked. In the end, Billy Ray’s interest led to a co-publishing deal in which half of the publishing went to Sparrow and half went to Lorenz Creative Services, with the idea that Sparrow would develop Steven as an artist.
Steven signed a contract with BMI – Broadcast Music, Inc. – which collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers, then distributes them as royalties when their works are performed. So Steven would get royalties each time one of his songs was played on the radio, in Muzak on an elevator, wherever.
Around the same time, EMI Music, the third largest music company in the world, bought Sparrow Records. EMI gave Steven a second chance to prove himself as an artist and agreed to give him an advance on royalties, which tapped out at $250 a week . . . the exact amount I had been earning but would