Collaborator: Rebecca Folsom
Wintertime in Colorado
by BJ Suter & Rebecca Folsom
BJ was one of the most talented artist I’ve ever worked with and one of the most beautiful souls. She had a perfectionist streak that raised her bar, and at times held her back. Yet she always showed up and took the next step. She was a dedicated artist, lifelong learner, and friend.
Though she could often present as a tough cookie, she had one of the softest hearts of anyone that I knew.
Here’s a song that she and I came up with together that we both loved. -Rebecca Folsom
Collaborator: Sandy Reay
by B.J. Suter & Sandra L Reay
I came up with the words for this song while driving to Denver to meet BJ at the Denver Art Museum. For some strange reason, I was early and had time to write down the words. (My obituary will call me "the chronically late Sandy Reay.") Years later, Ernie Martinez, my CD producer, and I agreed that this is our favorite song on the CD.
We didn't agree on her pronunciation of "gravity" I won.
I didn't tell BJ what inspired the song; a poem about a stewardess falling out of an airplane in flight over a field in Iowa in the 1950's. I taught an edited version of the poem to a class of kids waiting to drop out. One of those kids said, "Wow. She spent the rest of her life in free fall."
BJ thought "cabin" meant a cabin in the mountains. She was shocked to learn the story. -Sandy Reay
by B.J. Suter & Sandra L Reay
Jerry Mills told BJ that he was going to play this song on his radio show, "Rocky Mountain Bluegrass," on a Sunday morning. His station broadcast out of Cheyenne. I drove us up I25 until we caught the signal, and we sat in the car on a side street to listen for our song. It was the first time either one of us had a song played on the radio. And we probably spent more time talking about it and squealing than listening to the song. -Sandy Reay
by B.J. Suter & Sandra L Reay
I wanted to make a YouTube video of the song, but I'm not an artist. I wanted art work. And, I didn't agree with BJ's new lyrics and her interpretation of my rhyme scheme. She won. -Sandy Reay
Collaborator: Bill Farmer
Midsummer Waltz
by BJ Suter & Bill Farmer
Midsummer Waltz is a three part instrumental and features BJ Suter on banjo, Sandy Reay on acoustic bass, and myself Bill Farmer playing guitar and mandolin.
It was composed as collaboration between BJ and Bill in the summer of 2001.
BJ and I were jamming at her house one evening. I started assembling some chords on the guitar, and BJ started improvising a banjo melody over the chords as I played them.
We had created an "A" part for an instrumental, and we both liked it. It was a keeper!
The next morning, as I headed out on a solo road trip in the back country of Colorado, we agreed that we would both try to write a second "B"part while we were apart. When I returned, we both played our respective "B" parts for each other, and amazingly both our parts fit together thematically and melodically! So, what the heck, we kept everything that we wrote, stuck them together, and decided this new tune would have an A, B, and a C part. BJ gave it the title "Midsummer Waltz."
To produce the recording, I recorded my mandolin and guitar parts in my home studio, mailed my tracks to BJ, and BJ and Sandy Reay took my two tracks into Jimmy Ratts' music studio in Denver and they finished recording the tune, with BJ adding banjo and Sandy adding acoustic bass.
BJ, Sandy, and I had already formed a band that we called "WhoYaSay!" So WhoYaSay! released "Midsummer Waltz" on a compilation CD produced by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society.
Collaborator: David Coile
After we had met and discovered we were both songwriters, BJ and I started giving ourselves songwriting drills. At first it was pretty simple: at lunch, we'd call each other up and pick a random word from the dictionary, then we'd write on our own for the duration of our breaks and check in at the end. Once I moved in with her, we came up with a more elaborate technique: she would pick three random words from the dictionary, and I'd pick three random passages from books lying around the house. We weren't required to use all the elements, just find some inspiration therein. We both started writing countless songs from those techniques-- no telling how many got finished.
Once I started my Song-a-day January project (where I wrote and posted online a song each day for the month of January, about a third of the songs being co-writes with other local songwriters), I recruited her to co-write a song with me each year. We never got around to making polished recordings of these songs, but I cherish the videos just the same. -David Coile
Six Degrees of Francis Bacon
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Original Notes from 1/18/20: I rent a room from BJ, and as a result we've written several songs together. Unlike most of the other co-writes I do, BJ and I use a certain amount of randomization to find our theme. We typically pull three random words from a dictionary, then pull passages from three random books. If we can combine all of the ideas, great, but if we're only inspired by a couple of them, that's fine, too.
The words were "solemnity," "contrail" and "possessor." The passages included something about following an update schedule online, a job as a ski lift operator, and a quote from Francis Bacon. In this case, the Francis Bacon reference won out.
Francis Bacon is best known as the father of the scientific method, BJ likes to write songs about finding ways for humanity to get along. We were thinking about writing about a person who wanted to use science to bring people together, and we were going to use a lot of science words that had double meanings to that effect. I'm not sure it's that clear, but a lot of the lyrics are repurposed science terms. We also wanted to make a play on Francis Bacon's name, and ended up having him take the place of Kevin Bacon in that old game about connecting people.
The song is promoting the idea that, even if we can't agree on some things, we should still try to find some common ground and build relationships.
This took about 2.5 hours to write, but an hour to record. -David Coile
Paper Airplane
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Original Notes from 1/25/19: I got started really, really late this evening (after 7:30), but BJ asked to do a co-write tonight, so that probably made it easier to get done. We did our usual thing of picking random prompts from various books and the one that stood out was the word "deckle", which is a frame that's used to cut paper.
We didn't end up using the word "deckle", but we did build the lyrics around paper. It took about three and a half hours to write-- and we did finish it before midnight-- but it took a while to practice and record, so it didn't get up until early January 25th. -David Coile
You're a Snake
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Original Notes from 1/29/18: My roommate, BJ Suter, and I wrote a little rock & roll boogie about getting past those nasty people who talk about you behind your back. It took only about 2 and a half hours to write, but another hour and a half to practice and record. In addition to my song-a-day project, this was also part of BJ's song-a-week project for the year.
Boring Details: We had talked about starting around 4:00, but I took a nap and overslept, so we started at 5:00 and I was a bit groggy. I interviewed BJ a bit about her week and she had led a tour group of kids at the Denver Art Museum with a theme of perception, so I wanted the song to have something to do about perception. The snake got thrown in there by accident.
BJ insisted that we write a rock & roll song, because she'd never written one before (she's more of a folk-bluegrass sort). I came up with a simple two-chord rock & roll groove, but BJ probably wrote all the other chord changes. We both went back and forth on the lyrics quite a bit. BJ normally writes her lyrics before ever writing the music, so we were doing it in a way less familiar to her. The melody and phrasing is a little bit different depending on which one of us is singing.
BJ's a little camera shy, so I had to egg her on to be in the video. We were going to have her sing the bridge, but balancing the sound was hard with one microphone (the built-in iPhone mic); The banjo is too loud to be close to the mic, but her voice is too soft to be far away. We finally decided that I'd sing the whole thing. If we ever do a proper recording, though, you'll get to hear BJ's glorious voice. -David Coile
*****
But BJ and I didn't limit our collaborations to my January writing project. Every once in a while she'd catch me lollygagging about and say "Hey! Wanna write a song?" And many times we did. BJ was always in the midst of a weekly songwriting project, and she always sent her rough drafts to her mentor. Again, these are rough versions of our songs that I hope to someday polish and record; but for now, they capture some important moments that we shared. -David Coile
South by East
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Here on this Earth
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Joy Ride
by BJ Suter & David Coile
Holiday Cheer
by BJ Suter & David Coile