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Dennis Linde
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In all honesty (which is the way he likes it), Dennis Linde is a publicist's nightmare and a singer's dream. He's not into having his photo taken and stories published about his achievements. He's into transferring his mental pictures into songs that move the hearts, minds and souls of all who listen to music, no matter the genre - country, pop, soul, rock, you name it.
Once dubbed "Nashville's best-kept songwriting secret," Dennis prefers to remain sublimely in the background, writing the hits while others sing them onto the charts. Among the acts recording his music are Tom Jones, Donny Osmond, the Fifth Dimension, Randy Travis, Brenda Lee, Arthur Alexander, Teresa Brewer, Blue Oyster Cult, Robert Palmer, New Grass Revival, Sawyer Brown, Eddy Raven, the Oak Ridge Boys, Gary Morris, Jo-El Sonnier, Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chicks.
Growing up in Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, Miami and St. Louis, Dennis became fascinated with music when his grandmother bought him a $14 guitar. He learned basic chords and later hooked up with some St. Louis bands that performed cover songs, especially R&B hits. Linde joined Bob Kuban and the In-Men, a group that enjoyed a 1966 pop hit, "The Cheater."
Then came songwriting. There are many reasons why people write songs. For love. For money. For fame. Leave it to Linde to come up with one that has never been used before. "I started writing songs because I lost my driver's license," he admits. Because of a day job with a cleaning service and a night gig with the band, Linde was always in such a hurry that he racked up a string of speeding tickets. "I lost my driver's license for six months," explains Dennis, trying to put the most delightful spin on his bleak development by adding this post-script: "How much time can you kill when you can't drive around? So, I started writing songs."
Some of those songs made it to the gilded ears of Bob Beckham, then the guru of Combine Music. Soon came cuts by Don Cherry and Roger Miller, and then an impressive succession of the brightest talent in country and pop music.
Not only did Dennis give Beckham grand hits; he gave him grandchildren after marrying the publisher's beautiful daughter, Pam.
Linde cites such diverse influences as George Gershwin, Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, John Steinbeck and Cole Porter. And although he respects the songwriting craft as much as any creator in the cosmos, he doesn't take it so seriously that he can’t have some fun with it. A perfectionist with a deep sense of music history, Dennis once vowed to write songs that started with every letter of the alphabet. Some letters were easy. Others were much more difficult, judging from "U-Joints Don't Come Free," "Zoot Suit Baby" and "X Marks The Spot."
Now inked to a co-publishing deal with EMI Music, Dennis continues to score with major hits. "It Sure Is Monday" by Mark Chesnutt, "Janie Baker's Love Slave" by Shenandoah, "Queen Of My Double Wide Trailer" by Sammy Kershaw, "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie, "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks, "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks, and most recently "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues" by Alan Jackson.
Linde has a solid attitude about the roller-coaster life of a professional songwriter that any writer, new or pro, can attest to: "If you can last through the down spells and don't get wiped out by the up spells, you can stay there. And that's what I want to do because I like what I'm doing." And that's exactly what he is doing.
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