How To Make An Album In A Few Easy Steps

Write a bunch of songs. Quit school and move to Nashville. Realize that everyone in Nashville has the same plan. Meet and talk with Garth Brooks at the Bluebird Cafe before he was famous. Pitch your songs, unsuccessfully, to big recording artists. Leave Nashville. Move back to Nashville. Leave Nashville. Move back to Nashville. Leave Nashville. Keep writing and trying to get a foot in the door for 35 years, then decide that the only way your songs will be heard is if you play them yourself. Start playing them out whenever and wherever you can. Con your musician friends to learn them so it is not always just you and your guitar. Schedule a last-minute gig at a songwriter night that is 2.5 hours away, but on the way to your 40th high school reunion. Have a guy named Ron Sowell come up to you after the show and ask if you'd like to play in a show a year from now. Answer the call from Ron 10 months later--the one where he asks if you are still interested and available for that show. Play three songs at that show. When Ron Sowell asks, "why didn't you bring any CDs to sell?" say, "I don't have a CD of my music." When he says, "how many more songs do you have?" say, "lots." When he says, "record a bunch...just you and your guitar...on your phone...send them to me one at a time, " you say, "OK." A few months later when he says, "I'd really like to produce an album with you," you say, "OK!"