Since there's an "e" on the end in the title of this post, you can safely assume that it has nothing to do with the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. I'm talking here about Scooter Carusoe, a country music songwriter, born in North Carolina who lived in Knoxville before moving to Nashville. He doesn't have a website or a myspace or even a wikipedia article about him. He should. I don't know how old he is or how long he's been writing songs although the oldest song I discovered was from 2005.
The name he chose to be known by - I'll explain later - makes me think of the first novel I ever read, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", published in 1719. The nickname, Scooter, makes me think of the Hall of Fame Yankee shortstop, Phil "The Scooter" Rizzuto. I've always been a Yankee fan and I lived in New York for just over 60 years. Admittedly, my memories of Rizzuto were much more of his career as the "Holy Cow" announcer of Yankee games than as a player. But I digress as I'm prone to do. Wonder what made this songwriter choose Scooter Carusoe?
What got me thinking of Mr. Carusoe was a review of a song he co-wrote which became the title track and second single from David Nail's sophomore album, "The Sound of a Million Dreams". The country music blog Country Universe gave the song an "A" in their review on February 8, 2012. Writer Ben Foster called it a "tribute and testament to the power of a well-crafted, deeply resonant song". CU does not often hand out "A's" and they are not afraid to hand out "D's' or even an "F" now and then. Although I don't always agree with them, I never get the impression that they're just shilling for the country music industry.
Written with Phil Vassar, "The Sound of a Million Dreams" features a great chorus:
"So I labor for hours 'cause I know the power
of a song when a song hits you right
pouring my soul into stories of life
hoping someone'll hear one tonight
maybe my voice will cut through the noise
and stir up an old memory
and out of these piano keys
comes the sound, the sound of a million dreams"
Makes me want to write a song. Unfortunately, I have no musical talent. When David sings "out of these piano keys" near the end of the chorus, co-writer Phil Vassar comes to mind. I've seen him in concert twice and always think of him as country music's piano man.The song's two 8 line verses are also very strong. The first calls up a musical memory. The second recalls a youthful mistake and a mother who said "I love you not, I told you so".
I recently purchased the new Nail album which includes another Scooter songwriter related song, this one written with Billy Montana. "Songs for Sale" takes a less inspirational approach than "The Sound of a Million Dreams". Songwriting is just his job, just as "some are called to preach the gospel, string fence in Colorado" ... "swing a hammer at a nail, haul bricks or carry mail", ... "I got songs for sale". Carusoe also wrote a third track on the Nail cd, "Catch You While I Can" with Jedd Hughes, a seize the moment song.
Scooter co-wrote 5 songs on David Nail's debut album, "I'm About to Come Alive": "Mississippi", "Again", "Clouds", "Strangers On a Train" and "Turning Home". Although the last was the only single, my favorites are:
"Mississippi" - written with Dan Colehour & Chuck Leavell. In the opening verse, I like how snow in New York is compared to cotton in Mississippi, a "southern man's field of white".
"Again", a song written with David Nail, seems like it might be autobiographical for David. He talks about giving up chasing his father's baseball dream. "I turned in that uniform before I ever played a game". His girl left town to pursue her dream. He wonders if he or she could ever again feel like they did as kids growing up in a small town.
"Strangers on a Train" was written with Aimee Mayo. It's about seeing someone you're attracted to when you already have someone, wondering how it would be but knowing that nothing will come of it. The second verse ends "but don't feel guilty, it don't mean much, the truth is the two of us ain't never gonna touch". There's a You-Tube video of Scooter singing the song with David Nail.
I first discovered Carusoe when I bought the third Sugarland album, "Love On the Inside", released in 2008. It's arguably their best effort and was unfortunately followed by the awful "Incredible Machine" cd. Songs by Carusoe included "We Run", "Fall Into Me" and "Wishing", all written with Nettles and Bush. None were singles but all are really good songs with "We Run" marred only by all the nanana's at the end.
Whenever I buy a new album, one of the first things I do is check the liner notes to see who wrote the songs. I've been doing this for close to 20 years. Because I like the songs Carusoe wrote for David Nail and Sugarland, I decided to try to find out what other songs he has written. Since it's the most user friendly of the Performing Rights Organizations websites, I tried ASCAP first, rather than BMI or SESAC. (see my post on Searching the PRO's of 4/14/10.) I searched by songwriter, typing in Scooter Carusoe. When his name came up as Carusoe, Scooter, I clicked on it and found 42 songs written by Travis Fredrick Hill. Hmm. Could that be his real name? The list included the Carusoe songs mentioned above.
I don't recall any other songwriters at this moment who use a pen name but so what? The guy can write so who cares. Besides Nail and Sugarland, he's written for:
Kenny Chesney - his #1 hit from 2005, "Anything But Mine", a solo writing effort, and another #1 in '08, "Better As a Memory", written with Lady Goodman.
Lady Antebellum - "The Heart of the World" written with Tom Douglas, from their "Own the Night" cd.
Eli Young Band - co-wrote the title track to their "Jet Black and Jealous" cd and one of the singles from that album, "Guinevere".
Wade Bowen - "Before These Walls Were Blue", written with Wade Bowen. It doesn't appear to be available on i-Tunes but you can see Wade sing it on You-Tube.
You can check out other Carusoe songs on ASCAP and also find the names of co-writers where I didn't provide them. Looks like Scooter is well on his way to becoming one of the great country songwriters.
