by Scott Turner

About 2 years ago or so, I received a tape from England from a "Casey James". At first (before listening), I thought Casey was a male artist/writer, but I was overly surprised to discover that it was a very talented female artist/writer and I published three of her songs, one which was recently cut in the UK. Casey and her husband Paul were in Nashville last week mainly to see the city and get a "read" on current country songs by going to various writer's nights (there's about ten of them going on nightly at certain venues). I invited Casey and Paul to join us for breakfast with the gang and all of the writers who were there were overly impressed with both Casey and Paul (who, by the way, is a British accountant).

Ted Harris, the ultra-talented writer whom I've written about in the past remarked, "Casey James! What a great stage name!" Casey then explained that her given name is Catherine, but while looking for a pen name she discovered Casey Jones and Jesse James so she took one name from each folk hero or legend. Take your pick. Now here's the humorous part - Casey wanted to start up a web site only to discover that there were already three Casey James' on the internet - all of them strip acts and porno queens!! So the search goes on.

Casey (our Casey) was very familiar with Ted Harris' "Crystal Chandelier" (the Charley Pride cut) as it was recently voted the #1 song in UK country music by the fans over there and through Paul's connections, they volunteered to try and get the song to Paul McCartney. Besides being very talented people, they're also very nice people and that's what our industry should be - personal interest in others' endeavors.

I guess the moral of this story is to check out any stage or pen name you might want to use as the wrong move might bring some unwanted emails.