Sue C. Smith - I Love To Tell the Story

Dave and Dusty sit down with Sue C. Smith, one of Christian Music’s most prolific songwriters. Maybe you’ve heard Avalon’s rendition of Everything to Me or any one of her numerous southern gospel songs that continually find their way onto the charts. Or perhaps your Church choir has presented one of over a hundred Christmas and Easter Musicals Sue has helped write. Either way, her story is worth hearing.

Sue is also the founder of the Write About Jesus songwriting workshop which is widely considered one of the best conferences available.

In this interview, Sue shares everything from her first writing trip to Nashville in the 80s to stories about her great-grandchildren. YES, you read that right—great-grandchildren! This is an episode you won’t want to miss! 

Transcript

Hi, this is Dusty Wells.

And this is Dave Clark.

And you're listening to I Love To Tell The Story.

Having worked in the Christian music business for the last 40 years, and working alongside the record companies and the artists, let me assure you, my friends, we've got some great stories for you.

And Dusty and I started about the same time in the industry, but I've been working on the other side of the street with songwriters and publishers and copyright administration.

But either way, trust me, between the two of us, we know where all the bodies are buried.

I hope you enjoy our show.

I love to tell the story.

Sue, you nervous yet?

No, not really.

You should be.

What's the words that could happen?

I say something stupid.

And my career is...

You know, at your age.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Dusty, we haven't talked about this at all, but probably with the exception of Brian Spear, maybe, Sue and I go back as far through the years as anybody in this industry.

So the story is, it was back in 1981.

Probably, yeah.

God, you were old back then.

Sue was young and you were old back then.

Well, yeah, there's a little joke that I used to introduce her as...

His mother.

I would say, I want you to be my mother.

And then time rolls on and I kept getting older looking and she stayed the same.

So it wasn't as funny anymore.

It is so strange because I'm so excited about this interview because I'm a huge Sue fan and everybody knows that.

But I think she is one of the most...

And I've told my wife this.

I think she is one of the most beautiful women.

Her countenance, her love for Jesus, and just I've known her 20 plus years.

Dusty, I started thinking back.

I don't even know how we met or when we met.

I just like suddenly knew you.

And I knew you.

And it's been such an incredible friendship.

And I just think the world of that lady right there.

I just think the world of her.

And to our listeners, if you haven't figured out by now, we are talking to the one, the only Sue C.

Smith.

I knew her before there was a C.

You did.

So, I want you to tell the story.

So, it was 81, I think.

And I had been with the Speers, I think, about three months.

I was the new kid.

And I don't know why, but that night, your family, you had a family group called One Accord.

We were hosting the concert, promoting the concert for the Speers.

And I had only been there a few months, but something was already different about that night because you guys not only booked the church that we were going to be at, but you brought a fruit basket to the bus.

Yes, we did that any time we promoted a concert for somebody.

That was not the norm, and I already knew that after only a couple of months.

So we met that night.

So I wanted to hear because you guys were going to sing before the Speers.

So I went in and I sat, I can still picture it.

I sat on the back row, and you sang three songs that night that you'd written.

And one was called, Keep Rolling On.

You sang that, and then you told your testimony and you sang a song called, I Came To Love You Early.

Right.

And you had your kids together around you.

Who were pretty young at the time.

Yes.

And then the third song was, I'm Practicing My Hallelujahs.

And so that's been what, how many years now?

A lot.

Yeah, well, let's see.

Can you do math in your head?

I cannot.

You're married to a math teacher.

That's why I don't have to do it in my head.

But I can still sing you, Dusty, those songs that I heard that night.

And the one was, I'm practicing my hallelujahs, rehearsing my praise the Lords.

Right?

And I came to love you early.

I ended up getting to be the publisher on that song years down the road.

Yes, yes.

Keep rolling on.

Is it even funnier story?

Because I went to you afterwards, and again, I'm the shy new kid, and I said, I'm not a publisher, but those are really good songs.

Would you let me take them to my publisher?

I remember that.

Like it was yesterday.

And who was that publisher?

It was Ben Speer?

Ben Speer.

Who took Keep Rollin On.

And at that point, I had a song on hold for the Florida boys that they had said would be their first single.

And I was pretty excited about that.

Ben took your song, Keep Rollin On, and it became the title cut and the first single.

And you know me well enough to know that I was the happiest kid in Nashville.

And I really never knew for a long time that you had lost a cut.

But God has reminded me over and over that sometimes you're on the other end of the equation.

Sometimes you get the cut that's so unexpected and all of a sudden out of the blue.

But then sometimes you're the one who's counting on the cut and somebody comes in with the song at the last minute.

Then you've lost a cut and you...

And I still got the cut, it just wasn't the single.

And again, I have been a fan of yours since that night.

Well, thank you, Dave.

And Dusty, I don't know if you know this or not, but Cindi and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary this past weekend.

And the one person who saw the ring before I gave it to Cindy is the lady we're interviewing tonight.

Okay, see, that's what I love about these stories.

I love this about these stories.

There's always some kind of a thread that it comes out.

So here's a story about how I met Cindi, though, because Dave was my first co-writer.

I'd never written with anybody else.

He kept encouraging me to come to Nashville to write.

And so we had been on a trip to Florida and we were on our way back.

We would sing Our Way Down, go to Disney World, and sing our way back.

That was what we did.

So we were on our way back and we stopped in Nashville.

John got me a hotel room, said, stay here, call Dave, try to write with Dave, and then come home.

And so that's what I did.

And I went over to the old Benson building on Great Circle and goodness, walking in there was such, it was unbelievable because I had seen that address on so many albums and to think I was there.

And we wrote a lyric that day called What Does He Have To Do?

And Dave said, I'm going to go out the hall on the first melody writer I see, I'm going to give him this lyric.

And Don Koch had happened to be coming down the hall and Dave gave him that lyric.

So anyway, we had a little bit more work to do.

I don't think we had a second verse yet.

And so he said, we're going to go out to dinner with my wife.

So Cindi and I meet and we went to the old spaghetti factory.

It's our first time to meet.

Cindi and I are having a conversation.

Dave is sitting with a pen and an napkin, completely oblivious to everything that's going on around him.

He's trying to write the second verse of that song.

And the interesting part of that, yes, Don Koch was the guy that we ran into first, but he would have been my third choice.

Because I didn't know, I had written a little bit with Don at that point.
But also there that day was a guy named Don Wyrtzen.

The other writer that I knew was in the building that day was a guy named Dwight Lyles.

And Don was the unknown.

Little did I know that not only would Don have such an impact on my writing in the years ahead, but the chapter that ended up being one of his closing chapters was Sue and Don and I sitting in the room.

And at his funeral just a few weeks ago, I called Sue I think the night before the funeral and I said, you need to know that they are going to sing the last song that the three of us wrote together.

His sons are going to sing it.

And it was heavy to everybody in the room, but to Sue and I, there was so much story in the 30 plus years.

And Don's voice was on that demo.

Wow.

So, you know, it's been a fun journey because all these years, I'm still a fan of not only Sue's writing but of Sue.

I totally get it.

I get it.

We ended up, she got to kind of like a Nashville.

So, she would come back more and more often.

And Cindi and I had our first little starter home that was so small.

There was no air.

I always felt bad, but she knew she had a room.

And so that became her Nashville home.

Right up until we moved into a nicer home, and then she never stayed with us again.

Right about the time they moved into their house, their bigger home, Holly moved here.

And so then I stayed with Holly whenever I came to town.

So let's talk about Holly for a second.

Okay, let's do that.

So Holly is your baby?

Yes.

In every sense of the word.

And you tell her I said that.

She is married to one of my best friends ever.

That's how it all gets so...

That's what I love.

When Brian told me he was dating Holly, and I knew Holly, I said, Sue's daughter?

He said, yeah.

I said, have you met Sue?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I was absolutely...

Because I love Brian Ward.

He's one of the greatest talents, I think.

Keyboardist, singer, salesman.

We were old sales reps.

I did Word, he did Sparrow.

We joined, do all kinds of promotions for years.

We do...

And then I hired him to go on the road with Dottie Rambo.

We did all the Gaither dates, and he'd play the piano for Dottie and write all the arrangements for us to sound.

He's an amazing pianist.

He is amazing.

And Dottie loved, loved, loved Brian.

That's who she loved to play for him.

So it is a small circle.

It is.

So Holly grows up in the home of a writer.

In fact, I produced the records.

After we met, I ended up where I began to produce their family records.

Really?

I have a duet with Holly and Ben Speer.

Yes.

That is pretty priceless.

A song called Just For Me.

How old would she have been at the time?

Wow, maybe middle school, maybe seventh grade.

I don't remember.

Dusty, you may need to have that just to have it.

I would love to have it.

So, did Sue and John and the three kids sing?

Yes, and my brother and his wife.

And...

So, I'm learning something new.

Here we go.

I knew she had a group, but I didn't know what extent.

I still have extra LPs in the celopane, if you would like.

I would probably like to buy one.

I probably would.

I'm negotiable.

So, we would sing on the weekends.

We all had jobs.

Kids were in school.

We'd sing on the weekends.

Sometimes we would get back home, like five o'clock in the morning.

The kids would have slept all the way home.

Yeah.

And they'd walk in the house, take a shower, get ready, go to school.

So, probably that would be considered child abuse these days.

How dangerous would it be?

The child abuse was being forced to sing songs that their mom wrote.

Well, the truth is, John was the guy that, of course, John emceed our programs, and he was great at it, but he would, you know, say, just, Holly introduce such and such a song tonight, and the kids were not allowed to go, oh, dad, I don't want to.

So, or if somebody came over to our house and said, hey, y'all sing something, they were not allowed to say, no, we don't want to, so if you came over and you said, sing something, you got a little concert, so, yeah.

They all learned to get up in front of people and talk, which was so good for all of them.

They served them all well.

Now, I know this is your interview, but I want to tell a couple more Holly stories.

I love these stories.

I love watching Sue's expression too.

I'm just telling, I wish everybody could see her expression.

So Holly decides that she's going to come here and she was going to apply for a job with GMA.

She called and asked if I would write a recommendation for her.

She ended up with a great fit at GMA.

Then I was a writer at Benson.

So a few years later, the publisher Marty Wheeler hires Holly as my song plugger.

Now, I loved Holly, but this is my career.

So I take Holly to lunch and I say, okay, you got to help me out here.

How can I make the transition between Holly, the little girl I watched grow up, to someone that I trust with my career?

I said, what do you got for me?

She said, well, there's a lot I'd say.

I mean, she didn't hesitate.

I said, like what?

She said, well, let me give you three things.

The first thing she said was, you always take your lyrics to Don Koch.

And she said, that's your safe place, and you're cheating yourself out of what else might be out there for you.

And I don't remember two and three.

She had me at one.

Now, to finish that story, Holly does what now, Sue?

She's the president of Provident Music Group.

Kind of a big deal.

First woman to be over a major record, Christian record company, which is huge, huge in our industry.

That's huge.

But here's the funny thing to me because she would never tell me that that was happening or was about to happen.

I learned all this stuff from Brian.

And people will say to me, oh, you probably already know this because of Holly.

And I'm like, Holly and I never talk about the music business ever.

But Brian and I talk about it all the time.

I love that.

I just love that.

Let's go back to that day at Benson.

You brought in an idea that was something your brother had said.

We took it to the publisher at the time was John Barker.

We took it to John.

He loved the idea.

We wrote a verse.

We took it back and he said, I like the idea better than the verse.

Some spin on that, right?

Well, so the saying we wrote as something is giving me way too much credit.

I sat there and watched while you wrote something and I tried to offer help.

But honestly, Dusty, I always tell people, because it was my first time to co-write.

So I'm sitting in the room with Dave, this little tiny room, and he's, you know, he would say things and on the outside, I was trying to be cool and go, oh, okay, yeah, I see that.

That's a good idea.

On the inside, it was like explosions going off in my head, like, oh my gosh, why didn't anybody ever tell me not to do this and to do this?

And that first day co-writing with Dave was like the beginning of my songwriting education.

And I would tell anybody that basic, I learned the basics of the songwriting, first of all, just by imitating the songs I had heard growing up and the songs I loved.

But really to learn how to craft a lyric and have good structure and how to set up a hook and all that kind of stuff, I learned from Dave.

Well, and I would differ with a lot of that, but I felt like I just got to be in the room watching something that was so already entrenched in craft the night that we met with those songs.

The song, I Came To Love You Early, I Came To Know You Young.

Quote some of that for Dusty because that song ended up becoming the theme song for the quadrennium for the Church of Nazarene Denomination.

I've never heard this.

I've heard the story, but I've never heard this song.

Quote a little bit of that.

I came to love you early.

I came to know you young.

You touched my life, dear Jesus, when my life had just begun.

Now, you tell me, did I have to teach her anything?

I don't think so.

That's amazing.

And it was so real because what made me drawn to that so much was I grew up in a church home, a church family, with our friends, we're all church family.

She said, she told her story that night, she said, I don't have any great story of what God delivered me from, but I got a whole lot of things I think he kept me out of along the way.

Oh man.

I've learned, but as far as, you can teach somebody the craft of how to write, you cannot teach them how to think like a writer.

No, that's true.

And so that even the idea that she brought, she knew when she heard it, it was gonna be a great, and what I love that she did, I wasn't by any means an experienced writer at that point, but I had done it longer.

So, what she did that young writers really need to listen to is she saved her best idea for her first co-write.

So then something happened with that song that changed the trajectory of how I have approached these decisions ever since.

And that is, we wrote it, and Don absolutely did what Don always does, great melody and all the right things.

Greg Nelson put it on hold for Sandy Patty the week afterwards, right?

And they were just starting their process of looking for songs.

Greg took it and he played it for Jim Murray, who wanted to record it, of the Imperials.

And he said, no, this is for Sandy.

He played it for Larnelle.

He played it for Gary McSpadden.

The list went on and on because he was playing that as the sample of what they were looking for.

Well, by the time a year rolled around and they went to the studio to record, do you know what happened?

She didn't record it.

They moved on.

So here for a year, Sue's thinking we're going to get the Sandy Patty cut.

It would have been a game changer for both of us and for Don.

And what that changed in my thinking going forward, it didn't mean that we were mad.

You were discouraged, you were disappointed, but boy, you got to learn to roll with that in this town.

Especially in this town.

Did the song ever get cut by anybody?

Yes, it got recorded by Truth.

What's the name of the song?

What Does He Have To Do?

It's a great song.

I was a Truth fan.

I love these stories.

I learned something.

So we loved the Truth cut, and it was the right cut.

Here's what it changed in my thinking.

I never let anybody keep a song on hold that long again.

Oh, yeah.

And it doesn't mean that I wouldn't, but I check in and say, hey, because we couldn't go back to any of those artists that wanted it, because they had been told they couldn't sing it.

It was a great lesson for me though, because it was like, I always tell people a hold is only slightly better than a sharp stick in the eye.

You know, I've heard you say that, Write About Jesus.

I've heard her say that before to people, and some of Joel's, because holds, I mean, that being over A&R, that's one of the hardest things that I, is we're going to put that on hold.

And I always feel like, what if something else better comes in?

And better is not the right word.

It's something where they want to say differently.

You know, it's because...

So for those who are listening, and we talk a lot sometimes just out of habit in Nashville terminology, a hold is, if you pitch a song that you've written, an artist or a record company or producer will say, put that on hold.

And what that means is absolutely nothing.

What it means is you can't pitch it to anyone else until...

Yep.

And so sometimes, normally, I will ask for how long?

What's your planned date?

If they say six months, I say, let's kind of keep checking in.

And everybody handles it differently.

And the relationships are so important.

Yes.

Much more important than any cut, any song that you write.

I want to keep that door open and just a couple of months ago, I did something that I've never had to do in this town and I called some friends to say, is this right what I'm about to do?

And I keep thinking I've learned all the rules, but there was a song that had been on hold and it kept getting extended and group members were changing.

And fortunately, my co-writer had also pitched it and I didn't know that, well, they got it put on hold too.

And so the one that was dragging out, I've called them and I said, I need to pull the hold.

And that's a scary thing, but again, it was hopefully the relationships of a lot of years of being a straight shooter would win out.

What was your first cut that you remember, you thought, this is it?

And I don't know if that's the right...

I thought that about every cut and I still do.

And I love that about you because I know I get to work with you a lot and I've seen you bring a lot of our artists, their songs, Dave the same way.

But when you got here and you're writing with Dave and some of these other writers, what was the song where you thought, oh, maybe it changed your attitude, even though that's a tough question because all your children are pretty.

Here's the thing.

So when I first started writing, I wasn't writing Southern Gospel.

I was writing stuff to be pitched to Sandy and Larnelle.

So I would say the first song, I mean the truth cuts, I had several truth cuts and I was so thankful for those.

But I would say probably the first Larnellel\ cut I got, which was when praise demands a sacrifice.

That little song.

That's such a great...

Every time I listen to Sue, I forget that there's a certain song she's written.

The first time I heard that, because it was on the Live From Brooklyn tab album, and that was pretty overwhelming.

I bought it at Family Christian Stores in Hickory Hollow Mall.

I was a salesman and I saw that record.

I remember, I did, I bought it.

Usually, I would trade one of the Sparrow records or the Word records that I had, because I was the sales rep.

I bought that record, Larnelle, Live At Brooklyn Tab, because I loved Brooklyn Tab and I loved Larnelle.

I remember it being on the shelf and everything.

And to have him sing something I had written, that was such an honor.

So actually, he hosted the Dove Awards the year right after that came out.

And we went to dinner afterwards, Dave and Cindi and Larnelle and Mitzi.

And I went to, was it Houston's we went to?

We were sitting there.

And a young man came up to the table.

Oh, Larnelle, your song, when praise demands a sacrifice, it's so beautiful, I can't believe it.

And I was sitting kind of on the corner next to Larnelle, and he reached over and took my hand, he went, well, don't tell me, tell her she wrote it.

And that's so Larnelle too.

That was the classiest thing anybody could have done.

It was, I love it.

And you wrote that with Russell Maulden.

Yes, yeah.

And that was just, that was one of those lyrics.

I remember when that went number one, and I've still got the pictures from the party that, because as a guy it wasn't ever that I thought I had anything to do with it, but I got to watch it from the best seat in the house.

And that's what's been fun.

And that idea came about because of an ongoing argument that John and I had about the song, We Bring The Sacrifice of Praise, which he did not like and would not sing when we sang it in church.

And we argued about that song.

And I kept going, it's in the Bible.

He's like, I don't care.

I don't think that music goes with that lyric.

He didn't like it.

So it made me start thinking, well, when is it a sacrifice to give God praise?

And the song grew out of that.

And it took over a year for me to write it because I wrote the first verse in chorus.

And I couldn't think of where the second verse could go because the first verse is about Abraham and Isaac.

And finally, whoever the publisher was at the time said, I keep thinking about Jesus with His arms outstretched on the cross, like lifted up, like in praise.

And I was like, I will be right back and went up to a room and probably in about 30, 45 minutes wrote the second verse.

Did John like that song?

And did you know John very well?

No, but I loved his heart.

I met him a few times, and he was so precious.

I loved his heart.

John was the consummate fan of his wife.

Oh, that's what I remember.

The few times I got to meet him a couple of times, and I just remember him being so loving and nurturing, and just, yeah, you could just sense that.

I finally had to tell him, look, when you're at the grocery store, you are not allowed to tell people that I've won a Dove Award because you're just confusing them.

They don't know what you're talking about.

That is the best.

My dad said one time, he was proud.

We'll get to that in a minute.

He was proud of his son.

And he said one time, he said, you know the lady that draws blood at Baptist Hospital, she's a Larnelle fan too.

And I said, so how does that come up when you're getting your blood drawn?

Parents have a way of doing that kind of stuff.

My dad was a mail carrier, and it just always was bringing home some story of somebody he had met.

And you just go, oh gosh, I know what he's told them.

So we talked about my dad, was a lot like John, Sue's husband.

They were both proud of their sons.

And so we had a Christmas dinner one year that we used to do for First Verse.

We'd bring in food, you know, and it was just something everybody looked forward to.

We always tried to do it up right.

So one year, we sat Sue and John at the table with my mom and dad.

Do you remember that?

We laughed about, okay, who's gonna win this?

The Battle of the Titans, who could brag on their?

Dave's dad bragging on Dave.

John would come right back bragging on me.

And it was just, it was so fun because so many writers, and Dusty, you know this, so many writers don't have that.

And they spend their whole life trying to prove that their dream was valid.

And the thing that Sue and I shared in common was we were just surrounded by a wall of people that would believe in us, even if it never, and my dad always, he subscribed to The Singing News and he always would look at the charts.

Well, I never wrote a lot of Southern Gospel.

And the first number one that we had after losing my dad was Karen Peck's Pray Now.

And dad had an iPod that I had loaded up for him.

And when we lost dad, I saw that iPod sitting there.

So I just picked it up because I wanted to see what the last song he was listening to.

And what do you think it was?

It was Karen Peck Pray Now.

That's awesome.

You know, another thing that we talk about with young writers is you want them to write who they are.

I talk about it as you want them to draw water from the well that they drink from when it comes to ideas.

And for me, a lot of it was pain because it was something I had to learn to live with and write my way out of.

But with Sue, so I told you the first song that I heard that night when I came to Love You Early.

It was talking about this testimony that was similar to mine.

And then you fast forward, I don't know how many years, but she's still writing the same story because she's still drawing from that place of authenticity.

And that song was recorded by Avalon, and it's called...

Everything To Me.

Everything To Me, quote the first verse of that.

I grew up in Sunday school.

I memorized the golden rule and how Jesus came to set the sinner free.

I know the story inside out, and I could tell you all about the path he walked that led to Calvary.

But ask me why he loves me and I don't know what to say.

I'll never be the same because he changed my life when he became everything to me.

That is one of the old time best written songs in Christian music.

That's the song that introduced me to Sue.

That's the song.

I can tell you when I heard it.

I can tell you going and looking who wrote it.

I remember seeing, it was Avalon.

It was called The Big Voice Tour.

It was Avalon, Crystal Lewis and Brian Duncan.

And when they walked out and they sang that song, I'm freezing all over.

My eyes are watering because that song was so powerful.

And I thought, because I've always been such a lover of the writer.

You know that Sue.

You know I love writers and their heart and their stories.

And that's, it just hit me.

That's where I first heard Sue Smith.

That's where, and I started doing my homework.

Then I think I met you, but it was that song.

That song, and to this day, I play that song for numerous artists.

When I'm telling them, you've got to live the song.

I tell artists all the time, find that song that defines who you are.

And I play, I use that as an example of Avalon.

That song helped define Avalon.

And I'm a huge Avalon fan.

They had other, Adonai.

They didn't cut any bad songs.

No, they had great songs.

But that one.

But that song, I mean, I got goose bumps still because that to me was one of those songs that the artists lived it, but Sue, Sue Smith lived it and wrote it.

Well, and I wrote it with a pretty amazing writer named Chad Cade.

So, you can mention him.

And as in most of my co-writes, he was young enough to be my child.

Yeah, right.

He grew up with a similar background to mine.

His dad was a songwriter.

His dad had a song in the hymnal.

And so, we had similar backgrounds.

And the line I thought would keep it from ever being cut in contemporary Christian music was, I grew up in a Sunday school and that was the line people loved.

It paints that picture, the minute you hear it, there's that picture painted.

And to anybody who's been there.

But again, and I don't know if you ever even thought about that, but you lay that lyric beside I Came To Love You Early and you go, it's the same story.

I didn't really think about it.

That is true.

But you know, when I think back on that too, that was right around the time, you remember Grant Cunningham was killed in that freak accident.

And that second verse to me was so about Grant, you know, said we're living in uncertain times.

And talked about the fragility of life.

And so, you can have a story, but there are all kinds of different aspects that you draw from.

I have put that song on.

It's just one of the most powerful songs.

I'm sorry.

Thank you, Dusty.

I just think you live those moments just now.

I remember putting that song on many a times.

Thank Twenty-five years ago this year, something significant happened.

You, I think it was 25 years ago, you started a conference.

And yes, this will be the 25th year.

So the first year was 2000.

And I had been to Estes Park back in the day when they did their big Christian music and the Rockies and competitions and classes and everything.

And I'd been to several other songwriting type workshops and seminars and things.

And I guess maybe arrogance on my part to think, I think I could do this better.

But one, there were a couple of things that I kept thinking if I ever did a workshop, this is what I'd change.

And one of the things I wanted to do was to celebrate the people who were the writers.

Because if you're in this town for very long, you know that kind of the writers feel like the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak.

And the other thing I wanted to do was to kind of break down any kind of wall between the people who were already doing it professionally and the people who wanted so much to be doing it.

And there was, for a while, I think that kind of ended pretty quickly.

But when I first started going to Estes Park, there was literally a curtain that divided where the people who were professional writers or in the industry could go behind this curtain and do whatever.

And I was like, this is so stupid.

Why is this happening?

And so one of the things I wanted to do when we decided to start Write About Jesus was to do away with that division.

I was like, we're gonna have meals, we're all going to eat together, there's not gonna be any separation.

And one of the biggest compliments I think ever got was somebody overheard a girl on the phone with her husband, and she said, honey, you're not gonna believe this, but they're treating me like I'm a real writer.

That was the point.

So 25 years later, that is the go-to conference for Christian songwriters.

And if you've listened to any of these other podcasts, it comes up at least once on every episode.

Yep, yep, it really does.

Because it's been such a, it's been a hub of great songs, but it's also become family.

Yes.

And it's not just.

Family for people that come in and go to one year.

It's one of my favorite conferences ever.

And I've only, I've not been numerous times, but I've been enough to know you walk in, it does, it feels like family.

I love watching Sue lead, direct, talk to the people, it's one of my favorites.

It's one of my favorites.

Well, I love the people who come to teach, give so generously of themselves for that weekend.

And I, you know, I feel like I owe everything to people like Dave, and Joel, and Kenna, and Tony, and Lee, and people who have come over and over and over to really share the secrets that they have learned through, you know, their own blood, sweat, and tears about songwriting, and they share so generously with people how to do what they do.

And I tell people all the time, I lose cuts to Write About Jesus people all the time anymore.

And there are days when I go, maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

Because in this town you don't train your competition.

And yet you have done that so well.

So, I know several years ago there was a T-shirt that had all the cuts on the back of it that had come.

As a publisher, I've lost track of how many songs and writers and things I've signed from people I met there.

Do you have any rough idea of registrants that came there with no political connection, how many label cuts you've gotten?

I don't know how many cuts I've had.

I'm a terrible record keeper when it comes to that kind of thing.

But it's hundreds.

Yes, and they're like almost any Southern Gospel album you would pick up today, you would probably find somebody on there that's been to Write About Jesus.

That's a legacy.

That is a legacy.

Such a blessing.

I've had people say to me, so has Write About Jesus been everything you hoped it would be?

It's not anything like I thought it was going to be.

It's really in a way kind of become my identity in a way that it's part of who I am.

I think it's a lot of your legacy that you'll be known for.

I think her great songs, I really do.

But there's nothing like going there and seeing you talk to people.

I love, one of my favorite things is to be out in the hallways where they have the little one-on-ones at times and I've seen you do it.

I've seen Dave do it.

That's your legacy.

You're helping those writers.

One of my favorite Write About Jesus stories is a couple of years ago, they added a kids track.

That meant that the kids would write a song, they would have somebody help them.

I kind of wandered in to the banquet when they were going to let the kids perform their songs.

I got there a little bit late and I walked in and I see hands up and I felt every reaction that I could have, I was having and you felt worship in the room.

These two 12-year-old kids wrote the song.

I know.

I saw it this year with Gabriella.

Is it Gabriella?

She helped with it this year.

Am I right?

I don't know if this is her first year, but that's the first time I'd ever seen.

There was such a sweet spirit when they sang their song.

So yes, there was a sweet spirit, but the publisher in me also was going, huh.

I'm sure there was.

So I sent a text from the back of the room.

I hadn't hardly been in the room two minutes.

I mean, it was halfway through the song.

I sent a text to the parents and I said, hey, is publishing open on that song?

Because I think we can be in the studio in a few weeks.

And were you?

Absolutely.

I love it.

So another clinician was walking past me and said, I know what you're thinking, but I've already got publishing.

And I said, nope.

I held up my phone.

I said, I already got it.

And they just kept walking.

Just in there, just laughing.

That's the best.

So within a few weeks, we were in the studio recording in this room that we're sitting in with two 12-year-old boys.

It was not only one of our biggest selling anthems for littleness that year, but we did a reading session over in Gatlinburg.

And I had asked Lauren Talley to come and sing one of the songs, another song we were premiering.

So we read that song that day.

And Lauren comes up afterwards and says, has anybody cut that song?

I said, not yet, but it sounds like...

Oh my goodness.

She said, hold that for me.

Well, it was a few months later, it became the title cut and first single of her first solo record.

And the song was called Glorious Guy.

And so you talk about how important the kids' track is.

And we also have a master class track for people that come and win the competition.

Well, they can't compete anymore.

Plus there are people getting cuts.

Well, it's not fair for them to compete with the average registrant who comes.

But the thing is, God knew when He called me to do this that I'm like the world's worst delegator.

Like I just try to do it all.

And the only way that I'm not doing it all is when somebody comes to me and goes, you're not doing that anymore.

I'm doing that from now on.

And they literally take it away from me.

And that happened with the kids track that Nick and Allie came and said we want to start a kids track.

Joel said I'd like to start a master class.

I mean, that's happened consistently with Write About Jesus.

So tell the listeners where they can find out more about that.

This is not a commercial, but we can't talk about you without talking about it.

Exactly right.

That's something we believe in.

Our website is writeaboutjesus.com.

So W-R-I-T-E, writeaboutjesus.com.

And probably if they just Google Sue C.

Smith, that will become a pretty quick...

So Sue, right now, now you have, just to give, again, to give the listeners a reference for those who don't know you, we've talked about some of your songs.

The first Keep Rolling On was the Florida Boys.

And last week I was in Branson, Missouri, and I heard Ernie Haas call you by name as we have Sue C.

Smith's songs on our new record.

And I'm thinking that's just pretty sweet because they only would call a writer's name who's not an artist, but the artist would normally only call a writer's name if they were saying, hey, this record is so good, we've even got it.

That's exactly right.

So right now, I'm going to put you on the spot because I don't know the answer to this.

What have you got out there right now currently?

I have a couple of things on the new Legacy Five album.

Tim Parton recut God's Been Good, which I wrote with Belinda Smith.

And there's a song on there called Homeward Bound that I wrote with Lee Black.

A song on the Irwin's new album called I Only Have the Cross to Blame that I wrote with Joel and Val Dacus.

There's one coming out on the Triumphant album.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say it.

It's called Better Savior.

The cool thing about that is I sang that at the Write About Jesus concert last year.

I remember.

So I was with my younger brother recently.

We did a trip together.

And he said, I've got this playlist of songs that I go to, I listen to every day for encouragement.

He goes, I've got The Blessing by Carrie Jobe.

I've got this song by Brandon Lake.

I've got this song by Phil.

I mean, he's going down this list.

And he goes, and then I've got Better Savior sung by Sue Smith at Write About Jesus.

And I was like, oh Kirk, honey, you need a better cut of that.

Let me get you, maybe I can let you record this one from Triumphant.

You said you sing it.

Yes.

And for the listeners again, they need to know that for people like me and you, that's our favorite night of the year and the most terrifying as well.

It's my favorite part of the workshop because we've done it since the very first year where all the writers who come to teach sing one of their own songs.

It's precious.

We've heard some amazing versions of those songs.

It was the first time.

I remember Michael Farron singing Say Amen at Write About Jesus.

I don't think I'll ever hear a better version of that song than he sang that night.

There was a year that I was there and I sent a text after Kenna West sang a song called Even Me because it was a clinic in how to craft a lyric on so many levels.

The last word of every line was also the first word of the next line.

And so I sent her a text.

I said, okay, you've got to send me the lyric because I just want to look at it.

Well, for me, it was a couple of years ago.

It was Joe Lindsay and Brad Steele doing a million, a hundred different authors.

A hundred different authors.

Oh my gosh.

We were floored.

All of us were just, yeah.

It's a special night.

It's so special.

You've got cuts all the way from Avalon, and big songs.

Larnell we talked about.

The Florida Boys.

There's not many writers that have that wide a birth of artists doing different styles.

There's also another unique category that you're in.

Yeah.

Let's talk about great grandkids.

I thought we were going to talk about musicals, but let's talk about great grandkids.

Musicals is a big part of it too.

I don't have any grandkids.

You have great grandkids.

I have one who's here and one who will be here within the month.

That's unbelievable.

Yeah.

And gosh, I thought being a grandma was great, but it's just so good.

Sue, as we sit here, you also, you know, I think everybody, and we don't have to get into this long, but what I love, one other thing I love about Sue is she's always so, she's probably one of the most even.

Now, I don't see her, she's the most even person that I've, every time what you see is what you, that Sue, but she's had her fair share of heartache and hurt and pain, the struggle with her voice.

But she's lost her precious mama, John passed away, her son.

But yet what I love about Sue is that consistent, and she writes.

She knows what's getting her through.

Dottie Ramble used to always say, you pay a dear price for this anointing and what you do, and you guard your heart and protect the gift.

And I always think of Sue Smith that she just maintains, keeps it going, keeps it going.

And I think that's where some of the greatest songs are written is from that pain of your life and your hurt and your joys and your victories, the mountaintops and the valleys.

There are songs that I remember so specifically what was going on in my life the day I wrote.

So there's a song that I wrote with Kenna West and Michael Farron called A Place Called Grace.

And that was a particularly dark, hard day for me because of something that was going on in my family.

And there was a line in it that says now I sit here in the darkest place I've ever been.

And I know for people who love the songs they hear on the radio, the good thing is when you write a song that they can take the template of their life and put it on top of that lyric, and it means something to them.

But for the songwriters, it's so personal.

And sometimes you'll hear somebody say something like, oh, they just get in a room and crank that out.

And it's like, oh my goodness, if you only knew, if you only knew how every line gets talked through.

My brother asked me just the other day, so when you say to somebody, well, I don't like that as much as, you know, maybe we should try something different.

How do people react to that?

And I was like, oh my goodness, that's so mild compared to what you get told sometimes.

So, you know, there's a lot of rejection that goes with it.

There's a lot of emotion, disappointment, but there's also a lot of joy and excitement.

And if you can't take that roller coaster ride and trust God's sovereignty, you should run as fast as you can away from this.

But if you can trust God's sovereignty, then you can survive.

Got a couple more questions, Dusty, if you have anything, jump in.

When we talked with Joe Lindsay a few months back, and just kind of ask him at the end of it, is there one song that you'd want to be remembered for, and you may not have written it yet, but is there one that you go, gosh, this is, when they get past, yes, we did a conference for 25 years.

When we get past, Avalon had a huge song, and Lornell had a big cut, all these Southern Gospels.

Is there one that you go, this may be the one nobody has heard, or maybe they have, but is there one?

It changes, depending on what I've written recently.

There's a song I wrote with Lee a couple years ago called Beloved, that really, it's a modern hymn, and the chorus says, Beloved, I won't be able to quote it, He calls me beloved.

He says I'm worthy of Calvary's Cruel Tree.

Beloved, He calls me beloved, and beloved is my Savior to me.

That's why we love to tell the story.

You talked about your musicals.

So you've had the big contemporary Christian music hits, you've had a slew of Southern Gospel hits, you've had Steve Green cuts, you've had...

But you've also found a little niche that a lot of writers just kind of don't think much about, and you've done it very, very well.

Very, very, very well.

I remember the day, Dave, you said to me, this was when I was a writer at Brentwood Benson, we were over on Cool Springs Boulevard in that building.

You said you need to go down that hall every time you're in town, and you need to build a relationship with Jonathan Crumpton.

And I took that advice, and Jonathan started asking me to help write musicals.

I was blessed to build a great relationship with Russell Malden, who I don't even know how many musicals we've written together.

And then I was with David Moffit one night, and Jonathan dropped by the room.

David and I were writing in the evening, and I watched the two of them just click with each other, and I ended up writing several musicals, probably close to 20 now, with David and Travis Cottrell.

And, you know, when Jonathan left, what then became Capitol Christian Music Group, and I thought, well, that part of my story is over.

Jonathan is gone, because he was my guy, you know.

He was my person.

And I thought, I'll never get to work with Jonathan again.

I'll probably won't get to write with Russell again.

Then I left Capitol, came to Daywind.

And how awesome and good is God that here I am at Daywind.

Jonathan is here, Russell is working here, and the last year and a half, I've gotten to do musicals again with David and Travis.

And how many total musicals have you written?

Well, I wrote a hundred at Capitol.

Now think about that, Dusty.

When you think about the musicals, people, if you're listening to this, that is musicals that are anywhere from five to ten, eleven songs.

So for a lot of writers, they'd say, I wrote a hundred songs.

She wrote a hundred musicals.

That's amazing.

Churches all over the world.

Truly is what has enabled me to have a career writing, is being able to write those musicals.

I've written senior adult musicals.

I did one of those for Lilinus.

I have written kid stuff.

There's just something.

I learned this pretty quickly.

People hear a song on the radio.

A lot of times, it is in their head and gone.

They don't remember it.

But people sing in a choir, and they rehearse a musical for two months before they sing it.

And you see them standing up there, holding a book, singing that song you've written.

There is nothing quite like that.

It's the ultimate.

It is.

It's the ultimate.

I say that all the time when I'm talking to people, is when you hear...

Talk to a person who grew up in church and what they say about, oh, I was in this musical, and I remember this song and this song.

And it's one of the greatest things, I think, for people to say and remember.

We have done over 40 years of life together, our families have, and one of the funniest stories of a list that we could go on for several hours of.

Dusty, you'll appreciate this.

So Benson used to rent a big old house out in Estes Park, and they would take publishers and writers, and we would all stay in this big old house.

Well, one year, I got in late at night.

Do I need to interject something here?

Dave was a walking accident.

People in the ER at Estes Park knew him on site.

They knew his name.

All right, continue.

Well, that particular night, I got in after dark, and I found the house, which is a feat in itself, and it's just up in the mountains.

That's true.

And I thought I saw the steps leading up to the house.

I wish everybody could see right now.

And what I saw that I thought was a step was actually a very sharp rock that I tripped over in the dark.

But it was too late to wake anybody up.

So I pulled my suitcase up the steps because I couldn't walk.

It looked like a crime scene.

Losing a little bit of blood along the way.

Well, I got in the house, and they had a note where my room was.

I went to my room, and I'm still dragging this leg that's bleeding pretty heavily.

Sorry.

So the next morning, I was trying to find a towel or anything to just stop the blood, but I didn't.

So the next morning, Sue's daughter walks past the room, and I said, I need your mom.

Go get your mom.

Well, they come in and...

No, now, Dave, come on.

I'll edit this out.

She got up early in the morning, and he goes, Holly, get your mom.

Tell her I need her.

And Holly goes, yeah, right.

Goes back to bed.

So they come in and they take...

By that point, I had lost a considerable amount of blood.

Oh my gosh.

There was blood everywhere.

So we didn't get to stay at that house anymore.

Anyway.

We ruined some tiles that night.

It was one of many calls that Cindy got from the ER.

This has been great.

Sue, thank you so much for...

You guys make this so much fun.

Sue, you're the best.

You're just...

You make us smile.

She's so classy.

And then there's Dave.

And we're still here.

So, all right.

Thank you, Sue.

We love you.

We honor your songs, man.

Thank you for the way you love great songs and great writers.

I do.

I'm sitting here thinking, I'm with Dave Clark and Sue Smith.

And I'm just a, this makes my day.

We're glad you were here for this episode of I Love To Tell The Story.

Be sure and tune in next time for more with Dusty Wells and Dave Clark.

It'll just keep getting better and better.

Wait and see.

See you next time.