From Art to Commerce: A Workshop for Independent Musicians launches its first all day workshop at the Saxon Pub in Austin, Texas on June 22, 2013. The comprehensive one day program was created by Grammy-winning producer, manager and publicist Tamara Saviano and noted Indie artist Rod Picott.  From Art to Commerce demystifies the perplexing elements of the music business and teaches entrepreneurial skills essential to building and maintaining a healthy career in music. Visit the Independent Artists Workshops page for information and registration.

This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark was honored with Americana Album of the Year at the 2012 Americana Honors & Awards. Pictured from left: Jen Gunderman, Tamara Saviano, Guy Clark, Shawn Camp and Verlon Thompson.

October 2012 at Buddy Miller’s House for the taping of the Buddy & Jim Radio Show. Pictured from left: Shawn Camp, Jim Lauderdale, Guy Clark, Tamara Saviano and Buddy Miller.

2012 Americana Album of the Year, This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, has been nominated for a 2012 GRAMMY Award for Best Folk Album.  The awards will be handed out at the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards on February 10, 2013 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Lovingly produced by Grammy-winning producer Tamara Saviano—who is also working with Clark on his definitive biography—and frequent Clark co-writer Shawn Camp, the tribute includes 30 tracks by 33 Americana artists who are friends and colleagues of Clark or who have been influenced by his remarkable compositions. The collection was mixed and mastered by Austin engineer Fred Remmert. Part of the proceeds benefit the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.

Guy Clark’s poetry resonates deeply with his fellow songwriters.

“Guy’s songs are literature,” says Lyle Lovett, among the venerable artists who eagerly gathered for This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark. “The first time I heard Guy Clark, I thought it made everything I’d heard up to that point something other than a song. His ability to translate the emotional into the written word is extraordinary.”

Accordingly, Clark’s most vibrant (“Instant Coffee Blues”) and vivid vignettes (“Desperadoes Waiting for a Train”) reel with cinematic landscapes (“The Last Gunfighter Ballad,” “The Cape”). Novellas frequently unfold within minutes (“Better Days,” “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”).

Clark’s singular storytelling chills with striking familiarity (“The Dark”). “Songs are like Japanese painting,” he explains. “Less is more. One brushstroke takes the place of many if you put it in the right place. I’m trying to get whoever is listening to think, ‘Oh, man, I was there. I did that. I know what that’s about.’ Too many details take away.” Clark’s add volumes. Remember that old blue shirt? Mad Dog margarita? June bug on the window screen?

Of course, our passions forever burn brighter for the flour sack cape. Few capture courage as timelessly.  “Guy Clark is like a dancer with the way he talks and a photographer with the way he writes,” noted Texas indie artist Terri Hendrix says. “He’s the epitome of American songwriting.”

Clark’s watercolor imagery blueprints his legend, but generosity ultimately cements his legacy. For four decades, the longtime Nashville resident, whose own Grammy-nominated Somedays the Song Writes You (2009) soars as seamlessly as his hallmark debut Old No. 1 (1975), has cultivated songwriting talent enthusiastically. His matchless eye yields high dividends: Americana royalty Shawn Camp, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Vince Gill and Lovett barely begin the list he’s given sea legs. Young writers today immediately earn credibility with his stamp.

“Guy is the king in a lot of ways,” says rising songwriter Hayes Carll, who has split pages in the storied basement workshop where Clark writes and builds guitars. “I think everybody who was around Guy learned a lot from him and I think the entire music world is indebted to him for what he taught other writers. Everybody who had a chance to learn from him came away a better writer. He gave me a shot before I deserved one.” As friends say, Clark’s a curator, a creative caretaker. He celebrates high watermarks that others achieve.

This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark returns the favor. Artists brought two key instruments: a guitar and profound reverence. Individual investments quickly emerged.  Perhaps most notably, Gill claims a haunting bond. “Giant tears were falling all over my guitar as we were playing,” the country star remembers about serving as guitarist on Clark’s original “Randall Knife” recording nearly thirty years ago. “My dad was a lawyer, and he died when I was forty. Guy and I are tied at the hip through that song.”

“Let’s give her a good go and make ol’ Guy proud of us…” said Rodney Crowell kicking off the collection on the first day as he readied to record “That Old Time Feeling.” The double CD set was recorded live in studio with a core house band that included multi-instrumentalist Shawn Camp, guitarist Verlon Thompson, & pianist Jen Gunderman.  The tribute was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas with a rotating cast of other musicians including multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, bass players Glenn Fukunaga, Mike Bub and Glenn Worf, and drummers Kenny Malone and Larry Atamanuik.

Folks mostly laughed throughout the sessions. Swapped stories. Enjoyed company. Picked and grinned like those dusky evenings over at Guy and Susanna’s near Old Hickory Lake in the 1970s. Fittingly, Crowell issued our collective mission statement the very first day. We think you’ll agree everyone succeeded.

Volume 1

1.    That Old Time Feeling – Rodney Crowell
2.    Anyhow I Love You – Lyle Lovett
3.    All He Wants Is You – Shawn Colvin
4.    Homeless – Shawn Camp
5.    Broken Hearted People – Ron Sexsmith
6.    Better Days – Rosanne Cash
7.    Desperadoes Waiting For A Train – Willie Nelson
8.    Baby Took A Limo To Memphis – Rosie Flores
9.    Magdalene – Kevin Welch
10.    Instant Coffee Blues – Suzy Bogguss
11.    Homegrown Tomatoes – Ray Wylie Hubbard
12.    Let Him Roll – John Townes Van Zandt II
13.    The Guitar – Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
14.    Cold Dog Soup – James McMurtry
15.    Worry B Gone – Hayes Carll

Volume 2

1.    Dublin Blues – Joe Ely
2.    Magnolia Wind – Emmylou Harris & John Prine
3.    The Last Gunfighter Ballad – Steve Earle
4.    All Through Throwing Good Love After Bad – Verlon Thompson
5.    The Dark – Terri Hendrix
6.    LA Freeway – Radney Foster
7.    The Cape – Patty Griffin
8.    Hemingway’s Whiskey – Kris Kristofferson
9.    Texas Cookin’ – Gary Nicholson, Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien
10.    Stuff That Works – Jack Ingram
11.    Randall Knife – Vince Gill
12.    Texas 1947 – Robert Earl Keen
13.    Old Friends – Terry Allen
14.    She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – The Trishas
15.    My Favorite Picture of You – Jerry Jeff Walker

For more information contact Tamara Saviano at Tamara@TamaraSaviano.com

Presenting Kris Kristofferson with the 2010 Leadership Music Dale Franklin Award.

Foreword by Kris Kristofferson:

Tamara Saviano held up the Grammy she had just won. “Stephen Foster died a hundred and forty two years ago, and it’s about time he got this,” she said. And it was hard not to think that the words applied to her as well. The painful past revealed in The Most Beautiful Girl bears little resemblance to the happily married, positive, creative person she is today.

Home was where the hurt was. At age 15—never an easy time of life—she discovered that the man she knew as her father wasn’t, and the difficulties of their parent/teenager relationship understandably intensified. Alcohol didn’t help. It’s sad to see the attempts at a loving relationship (He taught her how to drive a car, forgave her when she wrecked his, got her a job and comforted her when she was fired the first day and got her another, and bought her a car of her own) erased by physical and verbal abuse.

Her life turned around miraculously and this memoir is the story of that inspiring journey.

INTRODUCTION TO

The Most Beautiful Girl: A Memoir

by Tamara Saviano

I am at Johnny Cash’s funeral. The pianist plays “I Walk The Line” as a haunting gospel hymn while the congregation settles into cushioned pews. The lifeless body of the icon lies still in an open casket, dressed, of course, in black. The opening to Cash’s 1970s television show flashes on an oversized video screen at the front of the church. Johnny, larger-than-life, proclaims “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” and I half expect to see him walk out on stage with the Tennessee Three and kick things off with “Folsom Prison Blues.”

I shiver and pull my thin summer sweater around my shoulders. This moment feels like the real ending between Dad and me. He’s been gone for two years, and we were estranged for a decade before that, but until now I haven’t grieved either the demise of our relationship or Dad’s death.

I have a picture of Dad, his black hair slicked back like the young Cash, leaning back in a chair and balancing a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon on his belly with his Memphis Soul album collection on a shelf next to him. Both men were young and virile when the photo was taken in 1968 and now I’m at Cash’s funeral and Dad is long gone. I wonder if they will run across one another in the hereafter.

Cash has been entangled in my life from the time I was a small child, present mostly through his music, the ghost of a man I didn’t really know. In more recent years, Cash is the celebrity subject of magazine articles I author and the dear friend of my client. I’m here today in a somewhat official capacity as Kris Kristofferson’s publicist, but Kris isn’t talking to the media today. Today is all about his friend John.

Kris’s wife, Lisa, and their kids sit in the pew to my right. I’m on the aisle and try to collect myself as Kris paces on my left. He moves like a panther, slunk low, his shoulders hunched as he wears a path on the sea green carpet. I focus on Kris’s black trench coat as he walks back and forth. The reflections from the stained glass windows tinge his coat with shades of green and blue. Kris’s agitation makes me nervous. I’ve been unsteady on my feet since an Associated Press reporter broke the news of Cash’s death to me at 6 o’clock in the morning three days ago.

Al Gore stands at the altar behind a podium. As he eulogizes Johnny he talks about how he, Gore, was supposed to be the next president of the United States and if it were up to Cash he would have been. The former vice president describes Johnny Cash as a man of contradiction—like Kristofferson’s song “The Pilgrim (Chapter 33)”—“a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction”—and recalls how Cash faced those contradictions—he didn’t deny or run from them but embraced them as part of being human.

My dad was also a man of contradiction and Cash’s music is the bones of the soundtrack of my life with my dad. The Most Beautiful Girl: A Memoir opens with the scene at Johnny Cash’s funeral, when I am struck with grief about the unfinished business with my father, who died two years before Cash, and hadn’t spoken to me for more than a decade before that.

My grief led me on a journey to rediscover my dad and examine the lost relationship with a father I once loved. The Most Beautiful Girl is the result of that exploration and reveals a heartbreaking and complicated, yet, at times, touching relationship between a young girl and her dad.

The story takes the reader through our sweet early years before the alcoholism and violence took hold; my coming of age in Wisconsin; the teenage years as I grew angry and disenchanted with my father and discovered a dark family secret: Bob Ruditys is not my biological father. My life continued to spin out of control with an early pregnancy, bad marriage, and the trauma of my daughter’s molestation by her own father.

Through the hard times, my love of music kept me sane and helped me cope. It’s a strategy I unconsciously picked up from my dad.

A falling out with my parents led to a 10-year estrangement, and my dad died at age 59 without any resolution or forgiveness between us. During those years, I moved from Wisconsin to Nashville and built a successful career working in the music business.

In spite of the drama, my father left me with great gifts; chief among them is the love of music, which led to my career and success as a Grammy-winning producer. The Most Beautiful Girl concludes at the 2005 Grammy Awards, as I win a Grammy for co-producing Best Traditional Folk Album: Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster.

After Johnny Cash’s funeral, as I reflected on my relationship with my dad and grieved our ending, the journalist in me took over. I steeped myself in his music and made a pilgrimage to Memphis to tour the Stax Museum and Sun Records. I dug through old photos and returned to Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to research his family history. I interviewed those closest to Dad—and received an earth-shattering revelation from my mom, which changed my point of view.

At the same time, I dove into the extensive body of memoirs and literature about family and relationships, including Jeannette Walls’ “The Glass Castle,” Pat Conroy’s “The Prince of Tides,” John Grogan’s “The Longest Trip Home,” Ann Patchett’s “Truth and Beauty,” and Meredith Hall’s “Without A Map.”

Like those books, readers will relate to The Most Beautiful Girl and its bittersweet themes of family drama and the ties that bind us to our parents. The book is also an inspiring story of breaking away, independence, self-discovery, loss and the complexity of forgiveness.

Quotes from Authors:

The Most Beautiful Girl is Tamara Saviano’s powerfully painful and beautifully written story of her own transformation and redemption from her train wreck of a childhood into a life filled with meaning, purpose and value. More than escaping the past, this is a story of her triumph over a past darkened by abuse and uncertainty into a life founded in love and creativity. Driven by hard work, a passion for music and her ability to forgive and to move forward with her life, Tamara has emerged as one of the best friends Americana music has. But that’s now. The Most Beautiful Girl is the story of how she became all she is.

—Robert Hicks, author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country

 

Tamara Saviano’s journey from child of an alcoholic father to Grammy Award-winning record producer left me breathless. The Most Beautiful Girl is a triumph of the human spirit that resides in us all.

—Marshall Chapman, author of Goodbye Little Rock n’ Roller and They Came To Nashville

 

“A courageous writer, Saviano explores a childhood that is bitter and wondrous, a place where madness and music mingle to tell us the truths about life.”

—Michael Streissguth, author of Johnny Cash: The Biography;
Always Been There: Rosanne Cash, “The List” and the Spirit of Southern Music ; and
Like a Moth to a Flame: The Jim Reeves Story

Music is the common thread that ties together so many of our life experiences, both good and bad. In The Most Beautiful Girl, Tamara Saviano brilliantly weaves together stories and songs to retrace the often painful but ultimately inspiring journey that has been her life so far. This unvarnished account of family dynamics that range from tender affection to savage cruelty is a riveting tale that readers will find both shocking and exhilarating.

—Dr. Gary Hartman, Director, Center for Texas Music History and author of The History of Texas Music

 

In The Most Beautiful Girl, Tamara Saviano examines unmentionable scars and unthinkable sins with clear eyes and objective accountability. The author’s singular style fortifies these vivid vignettes with authenticity that mirrors the legendary songwriters who sheltered her troubled youth. Like Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, Saviano confronts demons directly. She seeks truths tirelessly. Engages always. Her leanly crafted yet meticulously detailed prose proves undeniably: A truly fearless heart guides this remarkable journey toward salvation.

—Brian T. Atkinson, author of I’ll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt

Tamara Saviano’s courageously written memoir The Most Beautiful Girl proves yet again that familial dysfunction is no match for the healing power of love and forgiveness. With Johnny Cash, Otis Redding and Charlie Rich providing, via the family turntable, the soundtrack to many a riveting scene, Tamara paints a picture of her early life in northern Wisconsin that is as harrowing as it is idyllic. This is the story of one heart’s triumph over the human condition, told unflinchingly and without self-pity. No small feat, that. My hat’s off.

—Rodney Crowell, Author of Chinaberry Sidewalks

Tamara Saviano renders the truth of who she is with a gritty, unapologetic page-turner that will leave you captivated. Saviano’s storytelling is so skillful and refined, allowing her reader to trust and to be taken by the hand on this colorful journey of mind, body and most importantly–spirit. This is a chronicled exploration of a person searching to find the gentle hum of her universe, tangled somewhere within the matrix of bloodlines, deep suffering, aspirations and regret. The Most Beautiful Girl is, in equal measure, excruciating and triumphant; ultimately delivering massive doses of compassion for those of whom she writes and for Saviano, herself.

—Chely Wright, Author of Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

I’ve been in the music business for 20 years. I started in radio, moved into artist management, then to a major record label and back to media as a national magazine editor and on to cable television music programming until I finally started my own consulting and public relations business in 2002. I’ve spent the last two decades of my life rooting for the artists and the music I love. It has been a sometimes challenging but always exhilarating journey.

My specialty is consulting, A&R, project management, strategic marketing and public relation services for Americana, folk, roots and alt-country artists who are singers, songwriters and musicians. Fans of my artists are generally cultural creatives, educated hipsters, baby boomers and other true music lovers. I know who these fans are and I know how to reach them through targeted media, marketing, touring and promotion.

My consulting services include assisting artists in their development and growth in an ever-changing and evolving music industry. I have successfully managed artists and projects from conception to Grammy and everywhere in between by coloring outside the lines and reinventing ways to introduce artists to music lovers.

Some Clients Present and Past

Kris Kristofferson (current – since 2002)

Guy Clark (current – since 2006)

Radney Foster (current – since 2006)

Foster & Lloyd (current – since 2010)

Brian Wright (current – since 2011)

John Corbett (current – since 2012)

Ashley Monroe (current – since 2012)

Music Road Records (2012)

Warner Music Group Nashville (2012)

Icehouse Music – This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark (Fall, 2011)

Brigitte DeMeyer – Rose of Jericho (Summer/Fall 2011)

Red Beet Records – I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow (Spring, 2011)

Shawn Camp – Live At The Station Inn (2004), Fireball (2006), The Bluegrass Elvises (2007), 1994 (2010)

Terri Hendrix – Cry Till You Laugh (2010)

The Center for Texas Music History – Music from the Heart: An 80^th Birthday Tribute to Rod Kennedy (live concert 2010) I Wish I Was In Austin: A Tribute to Guy Clark (live concert Nov. 2011)

Ashley Cleveland – God Don’t Never Change (2009)

Dickson Productions – Undone: A MusicFest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen (2008)

Beth Nielsen Chapman – Hymns (2004), Prism (2008)

Gretchen Peters – Burnt Toast and Offerings (2007)

Dan Colehour – Straight To The Highway (2007)

Karla Bonoff – Live (2007)

Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum – Best of Flatt & Scruggs TV Show (2007)

American Roots Publishing – Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster (2004), The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson (2006), The Bluegrass Elvises (2007)

Dirty Dozen Brass Band – What’s Goin’ On (2006)

Pinmonkey – Big Shiny Cars (2006)

Marshall Chapman – Mellowicious (2006)

Marty Stuart – Soul’s Chapel (2005)

Joy Lynn White – One More Time (2005)

Americana Music Association Honors & Awards – Live concert at Ryman Auditorium (Producer, 2004, 2005 & 2006)

For information on artist services or my current clients contact Tamara Saviano

In March, 2004 Mavis Staples came to Nashville to record “Hard Times Come Again No More” for our first release, Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster. The day was magical. We spent the afternoon as guests of historic Sound Emporium studio who graciously donated one of their rooms for the recording session. Buddy Miller, Steve Fishell and Matt Rollings backed Mavis up while our favorite sound engineer Dave Sinko recorded the incredible performance. Mavis nailed the track on the first run-through, but we persuaded her to sing the song a few times for our own pleasure and to the delight of our special in-studio guests Emmylou Harris and Julie Miller.

From left: Lloyd Maines, Verlon Thompson, Jen Gunderman, Joe Ely, Tamara Saviano, Glenn Fukunaga and Shawn Camp

Producing This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark has been a wonderful journey through Guy’s storied catalog of songs with a group of amazingly talented artists and musicians. This photo of Joe Ely with me and the band was taken at the session where Joe recorded “Dublin Blues.”

Steve Fishell, David Macias and I co-produced a little folk record called Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster. The fact that we won a GRAMMY for Best Traditional Folk Album for our project still blows me away.  I tried not to cry but this photo shows the truth of the emotion of that incredible night