A life less ordinary

Sharon Vaughn to perform and speak at Drumlinia Music Week.

Some might consider Sharon Vaughn a unicorn. Not content with a lifetime of success as an American musician whose work has significantly impacted the landscape, she later bravely changed course as a writer of award-winning pop bops. A third reboot is currently in the works - her “most exciting yet”, she regards.

Sharon fitfully admits that by any standards her career has taken a “few unexpected turns”.

Having grown up surrounded by a rich tradition of storytelling, when her career first began to take off, the Florida native leaned into that experience.

Her first big success was ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys’, first recorded by Waylon Jennings and later popularised by Willie Nelson on the soundtrack for ‘The Electric Horseman’ movie.

“I started out so early, so young. I was singer for years and then a songwriter, so that was a whole different career,” she recalls.

Sharon’s “love affair” with the Emerald Isle meanwhile goes beyond the excitement of contributing to the upcoming Drumlinia Music Industry Week, October 20-27, and another chance to work with festival founder and fellow songwriter Don Mescall.

Along with other contemporaries, Sharon will present a songwriting masterclass on Friday, October 25, a once in a lifetime opportunity for those signed up to learn from the person who also wrote the country classic ‘The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me’..

For Sharon, Ireland feels almost like a “second home” having previously lived in Dalkey for almost a year.

“I loooove Ireland,” she says with comforting southern drawl, delighted at the news that Aer Lingus recently launched a new route from Dublin direct to Nashville.

Sharon often stops off as she travels between America and Sweden, where she has reinvented herself as a pop music writer “in addition to the country thing”.

Scratch at the glitter and glow-sticks of today’s radio friendly hits and you’ll find a Scandi fingerprint some place. Names like Max Martin, who has credits on songs for Britney Spears’ ‘...Baby One More Time’ and the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’, or Karl Johan Schuster (AKA Shellback) who has had hits with Avril Lavigne, Adele, and Maroon 5, to name a few.

Sharon more than holds her own in such exalted company, making her initial breakthrough co-writing ‘Release Me’ with Swedish artist Agnes - #1 on the U.S Billboard Dance Club Songs Chart.

Since then she has had more than 100 cuts with other European artists, as well as four number ones in Japan.

Sharon first travelled to Sweden, home of the Dansbandmusik movement and ABBA, on a “whim”.

“It was more a calculated risk really,” she adds, correcting herself.

Having achieved so much in country, Sharon accepts she could have sat back watched the zeroes tot up. But she still had a “fire” in her belly, and it had always been in her to “reinvent” herself.

“It could have gone either way,” she accepts. “I moved there in the dead of winter, didn’t know the language. I was sick as a dog, I had bronchitis, I’d sold my house and my art collection, and I didn’t know anybody there except for two people I’d written with, in Ireland I chasten to add.”

They were Niklas Jarl (‘I Promise You That’ by Westlife, and ‘Waterline’ for Jedward) and David Stenmarck. They’d visited Sharon in Dublin, after she hired a castle and invited all her songwriting friends for a week-long retreat. “There were 13 of us and we just formed all these friendships that have gone on to last all these years.”

Incredibly, and a break with the norm Sharon shunned the idea of getting a publishing deal when she first arrived in Sweden. She was always destined to set the terms of her own success.

“I said to myself if I don’t believe myself how am I to expect someone else to,” she states earnestly. “I’d already had a very nice career by now. I moved at 60 years old. I just decided ‘I’m tired of me right now’. I was bored and I wanted to reinvent myself.”

Within four months ‘Release Me’ was a hit in 48 countries worldwide.

Asked about the transition from country to pop, especially given the former’s chart popularity - bolstered by the likes of Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter - Sharon suggests: “It’s harder to convert successfully to country than it is pop, any day of the week. Country is very story driven, pop music is not. I had to make that transition.

“Storytelling is my strength as a writer. The fact I’m a singer really helps, and I can’t imagine not. There’s a big difference between a poet and a songwriter because you have to incorporate the sonic effect of a word in the mouth. It’s a whole different skill set. You gotta know what feels good, know the sweet spot in a melody, where you get those goosebumps on your flesh.”

Vaughn’s impressive versatility now sees her working on three different musicals - one of which is being co-written by Desmond Child (Kiss’ ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You’, Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ and ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, and Alice Cooper ‘Poison’).

Four years in writing, it features American rock duo The Everly Brothers. But the real focus is the husband-and-wife country music and pop songwriting duo, Boudleaux and Felice Bryant (‘Bye Bye Love’ and ‘Wake Up Little Susie’).

“We’re about to finish it up,” reveals Sharon, noting that the Byrants were among the first professional songwriters in Nashville. “So it’s really about the birth of the recording industry in Nashville. It’s very fascinating.

“You see, I sung all those years, worked with Dolly [Parton] and Porter [Wagner] on the Opry. I got to know the background. It was during the hey day. We’d work maybe three sessions, everyday. You never knew who’d come in the door. It could be one of Cadillac Kings or even Boots Randolf. You just never knew. It was a lot of fun.”

What will Sharon’s next reinvention look like?

She says inspiration can come at anytime. “You have to be open, you have to be brave. I could write a song underwater if I needed to,” she laughs. “I’ve done it under every circumstance imaginable. You see, nothing changes about writing a song. When you open that computer or a blank pad, it’s challenging you, like the scariest wolf in the woods. It’s daring you to fail, to not come up with anything. It starts with overcoming that fear.”