![\"masterTunesmithArata\"](\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/masterTunesmithArata.jpg\")
<\/a>wishing him good luck when he moved in 30 days. Puzzled, Arata discovered that his wife, Jaymi (\u201980, \u201983), had given notice.<\/p>\n\u201cMy wife forced my hand to move to Nashville. She said, \u2018If you\u2019re going to write songs, you need to go where people know what it means. She got us there and kept us there,\u201d said Arata, who became interested in music during his childhood.<\/p>\n
Even though Arata wasn\u2019t aware of it at the time, the road to Nashville began simply enough when he started looking at his siblings\u2019 album collections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent time reading the lyrics from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and R&B \u2013 all kinds of styles,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was when it really clicked with me that sometimes songs came from songwriters and the artists were usually not writing themselves,\u201d he mentioned, such as Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin and Glenn Campbell.<\/p>\n
Arata taught himself to play guitar, and during his sophomore year at Georgia Southern, he began writing songs and playing in local clubs. After the couple\u2019s move to Nashville, Arata squeezed in his songwriting with his workday, waking up early each morning to write songs before heading off to his job loading trucks for UPS.<\/p>\n
After work, he would perform at Open Mic nights in some of the city\u2019s clubs. Call it fate or call it perfect timing, but one night after performing a song, \u201cThe Dance,\u201d at the Bluebird Caf\u00e9, Arata met another aspiring writer who was himself working selling boots named Garth Brooks, who had just moved there from Oklahoma. \u201cGarth said to me, \u2018If I ever get a record contract, I\u2019m going to record that song.\u2019 When he signed with Capitol Records, he called me and asked if the song was still available,\u201d said Arata.<\/p>\n
“The Dance\u201d \u2013 Arata\u2019s first song to be recorded, and also the first of several songs that Brooks would record by the songwriter \u2013 went on to win Song of the Year in 1990 from the Academy of Country Music; was number one for three weeks in Billboard and Radio & Records and received Grammy and CMA nominations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to have a lot of artists sing my songs,\u201d said Arata, estimating that he\u2019s written anywhere from 600 to 700 songs penning charttoppers for country stars like Patty Loveless, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Lee Roy Parnell, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, Clay Walker, Suzy Bogguss, Don Williams, Hal Ketchum and Tanya Tucker.<\/p>\n
When it comes to songwriting, Arata follows one simple rule: \u201cWrite the best thing you can on any given day. What some people shy away from in a song is what others may like in a song,\u201d he says about composing lyrics. \u201cThere\u2019s no real trick to songwriting \u2013 you don\u2019t have to come up with something new. The best songs are what someone has already lived \u2013 like having a broken heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arata performs some 60 shows per year, including a monthly show at the Bluebird Caf\u00e9. Some of his favorite concerts are home shows \u2013 small intimate gatherings where residents can walk to the venue. Last fall, he returned to his hometown of Tybee Island, Ga., to perform a benefit concert for the Tybee Post Theater.<\/p>\n
Performances aside, Arata acknowledged that some of his most gratifying work comes from speaking engagements. He shares advice and tips from his experiences in the industry with teenagers and college students serious about their craft. \u201cI want these aspiring writers and artists to know that rejection isn\u2019t the end \u2013 it\u2019s where it starts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tony Arata Has Penned More Than 600 Songs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-spring-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}