On Saturday morning, as the rain was coming down hard and sideways, the introductions began.<\/p>\n
I had driven to St. Francisville for a songwriters\u2019 workshop despite having little business being there. As the participants and facilitators introduced themselves, I had to chuckle to myself, knowing that I might as well make the most of the day despite the growing suspicion that I was wildly out of my league.<\/p>\n
The other nine participants, ranging in age from 17 to 71, turned out to be serious musicians who had spent years writing songs.<\/p>\n
The four facilitators were accomplished songwriters. I, on the other hand, had long ago played piano well enough to accompany a small congregation for certain hymns. The only songwriting cred I had was that I collaborated on one song with facilitator Jodi James about a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n Jan Risher attended a songwriters’ workshop in St. Francisville Saturday, May 9, organized by Arts for All.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Even so, music has always occupied an outsized place in my life.<\/p>\n The gap between my experience and everyone else’s was clear. These were serious people. They had instruments. They had history. They had songs.<\/p>\n But I love being a fish out of water.<\/p>\n What I had was words.<\/p>\n Turns out, they had those too, along with everything else.<\/p>\n That said, I was there \u2014 and one word had been living in my head like a tune: loblolly.<\/p>\n Loblolly pines covered the little Mississippi town where I grew up. The town was called Forest, simply for all the trees. Loblolly is one of those words that I never thought much about because it was such a part of my life.<\/p>\n Then another word surfaced: lullaby.<\/p>\n Loblolly Lullaby.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n The two words fit together the way certain things just do \u2014 like they’d been waiting for each other.<\/p>\n The workshop was organized by Arts for All, the St. Francisville organization Lynn Woods helped start in 2006 with a goal of promoting the arts in West Feliciana Parish and nurturing the idea that creativity is vital \u2014 to individuals, to communities, to people of every age.<\/p>\n The workshop facilitators included James, Eric Schmidt, Steve Judice and Mary Alice Vanderwater, all accomplished in ways that made me grateful no one was checking credentials at the door.<\/p>\n My plan, modest as it was, had been to write some lyrics and offer them to one of the real musicians.<\/p>\n That’s not what happened.<\/p>\n When we broke to work on our songs, two people \u2014 Vanderwater, of Pineville, and Josh Brashear, of Lafayette \u2014 found me along on the front porch and said they wanted to help write a “Loblolly Lullaby.”<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Mary Alice Vanderwater, left, and\u00a0Josh Brashear help Jan Risher write a song at a songwriters’ workshop in St. Francisville.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
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