NEW YORK – When Del Bryant, president and CEO of Broadcast Music Inc., came to work for the company fresh out of college 35 years ago, his resume for the songwriting biz had already begun to take shape the day he was born.
After all, he is the son of the famous songwriting duo, the late Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. The couple is known for the song ”Rocky Top,” plus the Everly Brothers hits ”All I Have to Do Is Dream” and ”Bye Bye, Love.” They also produced hits for Tony Bennett, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Buddy Holly, to name a few.
Each day of Bryant’s youth was an adventure. Now 59, he said that as a child he had no plans to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He and his brother, Dane, enjoyed creating new rhymes alongside their parents. It was not until he was in his late teens that songwriting started looking like a possible career choice.
”I was raised backstage at the Grand Ole Opry with the other stage brats,” he said. ”It didn’t look like a job, it just looked like a lot of people making music together and having fun.”
Felice and Boudleaux wrote 500 songs recorded by more than 400 artists, amounting to sales of more than 250 million records during the course of their 35-year career. Most of the songs they wrote were registered with BMI, which protects the intellectual property of composers, songwriters and publishers. The company also ensures that its clients are paid royalties for the use of their songs.
Boudleaux, of Cherokee and Creek ancestry, was born in Georgia in 1920 and was raised with little knowledge of his parents’ bloodline. Bryant said that his father gathered information over the years, but it was not until his grandfather was on his deathbed that the details of their ancestry were revealed. Bryant quipped that his grandfather and uncle both explained their ancestry to his dad like the confession of a ”taboo Southern secret.”
Bryant explained that his father kept his Native heritage under wraps back in the dark era of Jim Crow laws. Yet, even if they had to keep quiet in public, he said that within the confines of their home his father spoke proudly of his Native ancestry. ”Dad was really into talking about his heritage back in the 1950s,” he said.
That pride would eventually lead Boudleaux to visit the Cherokee chieftains in North Carolina and to the recording of an entire album in the Cherokee language.
Bryant said that every movement in his life has served as a series of chain reactions, shaping the person he has become today. He admits that his upbringing gave him an edge at BMI, but he had to prove that he was deserving of promotions via his dedication and hard work.
In retrospect, his parents’ chance meeting started the series of chain reactions that quickly evolved into a successful career.
Boudleaux met his Sicilian sweetheart, Matilda Genevieve Scaduto (Felice), in her hometown of Milwaukee in 1945. Felice enjoyed writing poems and performed as a singer and director for local USO shows during World War II.
It must have been kismet, as the young couple eloped within two days of meeting one another. ”My mother walked up to my dad and told him that he was the one that she was supposed to marry,” Del said. ”They were very much in love.”
The Bryants eventually settled down in Nashville, where they could hustle their songs to performers at the Grand Ole Opry. Chet Atkins, Kitty Wells and the Everly Brothers made regular visits to the house. And this made life anything but ordinary.
Even the automobile served as a creative platform for the happy couple, primarily on rainy days. Bryant said his parents drew upon the sound of the rain for creative inspiration, and they would make songs to the tune of the swishing windshield wipers.
It was on one of those trips that his parents composed the lyrics for ”Bye Bye, Love.” Bryant said the song was written in a matter of 15 minutes. ”My father was a very accomplished musician,” he said. ”My dad could write down the notes very quickly and be back on the road.”
Over the years his parents garnered numerous industry awards, including induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the BMI Pop, Country and R&B awards.
Bryant started his career at BMI in the writer/publisher and performing rights department in Nashville. He is credited with launching an aggressive writer acquisition campaign, restructuring BMI’s royalty distribution system and revitalizing the film and television department in Los Angeles, among numerous other accomplishments.
BMI was formed in 1939 by about 400 broadcasters who wanted songwriters who were off the beaten path of New York and Los Angeles to receive royalties for their songs. BMI also created promising opportunities to often overlooked artists, especially in the South. It opened the door for black and country songwriters, among countless other hopefuls.
Today, BMI represents more than 300,000 songwriters, composers and publishers in all genres of music and a repertoire more than 6.5 million compositions.