“Have you ever had anyone famous on your show?”
It’s an obvious question to ask someone in radio. To me, it’s a question that always makes me a little self-conscious and awkward. If I say “yes”, I feel boastful. If I say “no,” why would anyone bother listening?
My little local music show has spotlighted local and regional original music going back to 1996 OMG… Sorry. I just had a moment. That’s a long time for a feature music show and I am lucky enough to have a whole room filled with great music and stories to go along with it.
The short answer is ‘yes’, I have had famous people on my show. Their accolades and accomplishments range from Grammy-winning producers to voice coaches for the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll to world renowned singers and musicians with Gold and Platinum record sales.But that is NOT what The Cheap Seats are about. If you are familiar with The Cheap Seats, you know from one week to the next I will give time to an up-and-coming singer-songwriter as quickly as a seasoned touring headliner. Wait – that’s not true. I give more time to the no-name artist with a scrapbook full of lyrics and big dreams than the ones who have penned record deals and touring contracts. That’s just the way I am… I like to support the underdog, I guess.
A few years ago, for example, someone gave me a CD with the name Meghan written in sharpie. No song titles, no contact information; just a name on a CD. “You have to listen to this song” was the message personally delivered to me via the members of The Ticks from Johnny Spampinato. Johnny (you might recall from a previous blog is an incredibly talented member of The Spampinato Brothers along with his brother, Joey). I learned that Meghan was a student at Nauset Regional High school. Johnny had been teaching her guitar, but “gave up” because she was so talented, he ran out of things to teach her!
I had the chance to catch up with Johnny and once again, he sang the teenager’s praises (Get it? Sing? Musicians. O.K. Fine). Johnny told be about the young woman whom he would teach a simple riff and the next day she would have practiced, dissected, digested and reinvented whatever she learned into a complete song. COMPLETE: Music, lyrics, harmonies, melodies, vocals and all burned to a CD in the home studio she had created in the guestroom of her family’s Eastham home.
There is a story, that has been somewhat turned into Urban Legend about the first time I played one of Meghan’s songs on the radio. It was a Sunday evening, and like many homes these days, there was not a real radio for Meghan to sit by and listen. The solution was for Meghan, one of her brothers and her mother to sit in the car in the driveway doing homework listening until her song came on. And it did.
Meghan’s early CDs
In March of 2010, I invited Meghan to co-host The Cheap Seats with me. Her father Gary, ever at her side, came with her. I convinced Gary to come on the air and I asked him about finding a balance between supporting Meghan and guiding her like a father. He said it was difficult. He and wife Kelli were doing everything they could to let Meghan be a teenager. But if it meant driving her to Berklee College of Music or to shows in venues where she wasn’t old enough to go through the front door alone, so be it.
That same night, Meghan talked about her high school jazz band and her uncle from Trinidad and other area bands she admired. I asked her what she wanted to be doing right at that moment. Without hesitation, she said “touring and writing songs.” She was 16 years old. Less than a year later, she gave me a fully produced self-titled CD and another one called “Only 17”. Meghan played every festival and every event that would give her space to sing.
She produced more songs and learned new techniques and styles of music: Jazz, pop, hip-hop, island, folk. She even wrote an original lullaby for a compilation CD I co-produced with Mark Bryant at SeaSound recording studios. Every time she had a new song she (or her mom) would send me a copy for The Cheap Seats.
In what seemed like no time, she signed a songwriting deal with Big Yellow Dog in Nashville. She wrote a lot of songs. Check out the song credits on Rascal Flatts’ “Rewind” CD. Then in July of 2014, I got an email with a song called “All About That Bass”. It was not officially released. I will not say if I followed (or didn’t follow) the instructions to keep it to myself, or if I did or did not play it on the air the following Sunday. But I couldn’t get the damned song out of my head!
The rest of this story unfolded on national television Monday night with her father by her side and tears in her eyes, (maybe a few tears in my eyes, too), Meghan accepted the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
I haven’t talked personally to Meghan in many years and that’s O.K. Meghan has grown from an enthusiastic teen with a knack for music to a writer, producer, teacher, role model (and Grammy winner) in a very brief period of time. Meghan is one of the rare few who had the lucky combination of talent, determination and strength (along with the strength of her family) to chase her dream and make it her own. Meghan is the real deal. She is not simply a voice. She is an artist.
Sitting here in The Cheap Seats watching Meghan’s dreams come true is pretty damned cool. And I look forward to watching the next dream for the next Meghan unfold. And then, Tuesday night my cell phone rang…
“Hello? Cat? It’s Gary. Hold on. I am handing the phone over. I am gonna surprise Meghan.”
“Cat?! Hey!! It’s Meghan!”
I could hear just a hint of the teenager from my show from several years ago. This was now the happy raspy voice of a friend who sounded exhausted from a whirlwind night after a whirlwind year.
“How are you? You must be exhausted! I am so happy for you!”
I was sure there wasn’t a thing I could say she hadn’t already heard a million times in the last 20 hours.
“I feel like I was on the show with you like yesterday,” she said. “It’s been a dream! It’s like a dream.”
We made some small talk and I explained that I was writing an article. I asked her what she would say, if she could, to a young woman heading in to do The Cheap Seats for the very first time with her very first song.
“It’s possible! It’s totally possible!”
I tried to scribble notes, but I couldn’t write things down on my hand while I was still holding the phone. Then I realized that I was simply catching up with someone I hadn’t talked to in years. We agreed that big hugs and hot chocolate were long overdue. She has so much planned for the coming year that include a commercial shoot, a new album (watch for new music March 4th), traveling to some major cities and overseas. She assured me that she is still producing all her own songs – even if it means calling someone to the studio “at 1:30 in the morning because I have a new idea.”
She has her pick of studios now (New York, L.A., Nashville). But she built her own studio in her new home, which I bet, like her old guest room, is where she spends most of her time.
I have seen the online fodder and opinions and speculations about Meghan being a one-hit-wonder, or a fad. The negative comments are all from people who never had the chance to spend any time with her. Meghan didn’t pop onto the scene out of a reality show or a YouTube channel. She worked. She wrote. She wrote for other people and had to prove herself. Meghan isn’t someone who walks into a studio and recites a song that someone told her to sing. Meghan is the real deal. And it’s a pretty good thing she started so young, because she has a lot more music to share with the rest of us.
Even those of us who spend most of our time in The Cheap Seats.
Congratulations on your Grammy for Best New Artist, Meghan. You earned it!
Meghan Trainor performing at Tommy Doyle’s Pub In Hyannis in 2010 when she was 17.
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