An article in Billboard magazine last September stunned lyricist Bruce Burch, Brenau University executive-in-residence. It reported that “Queen of Country Music” Loretta Lynn would release her first album since 2004. The kicker, however, was that the new album, Full Circle, features “Wine into Water,” a song Burch penned more than 20 years ago.
“Finding out my song is on her album means more to me than anything,” Burch said of the performer who has written some of the most iconic country songs of all-time, including her signature ballad “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
“Loretta Lynn is one of my heroes,” said Burch.
Burch originally wrote the song in 1995. Singer T. Graham Brown, who wrote the music, recorded it as the title cut for his 1998 album. Since then, “Wine into Water” has been performed by several other artists, and Loretta Lynn has been performing it in live tours for almost two decades.
“Wine into Water" is a personal ode, as it deals with alcoholism ‒ something Brown struggled with personally as he and Burch collaborated on the song.
“I was just cutting the grass one day, and the lyrics came to me,” said Burch. “I knew I wanted to write this song with [Brown]. It came together pretty quickly – we wrote it in one sitting. It just fell out of the sky.” The Intersound Records track did very well. It peaked at 44 on Billboard magazine's Hot Country chart, a rarity for an independent label release.
The song spoke to Lynn as well. According to an interview in The New York Times, Lynn said that she personally never had alcohol problems, but members of her family, including her late spouse Oliver Lynn, did.
“I don’t see nothing wrong with drinking, but when you get hooked on it, it’s time to do something about it. I would’ve liked to have sung [“Wine into Water”] to my husband,” she said.
Burch, a Gainesville native, has been a songwriter since he fell in love with country music, listening to “For the Good Times” by Kris Kristofferson in 1972. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1975 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977. Actor Slim Pickens was the first to record a Burch song, but the album was never released. However, in 1982 the Oak Ridge Boys cut his song “Christmas Carol.”
Since, Burch songs have been recorded by Reba McEntire, Billy Joe Royal, Faith Hill and Wayne Newton. He also got to work with Kristofferson, the man who first inspired him. “It is an honor to know him,” said Burch.
In 1991, he opened his own publishing company, Bruce Burch Publishing, and started working as creative director at EMI Publishing in 1996.
Burch has always considered himself more as a lyricist than a performer. However, he encourages songwriters to share their talents through different venues – not only does he help to orchestrate the annual John Jarrard Foundation Summer Songwriters Series, a benefit concert hosted by Brenau University that celebrates the memory of musician and longtime friend John Jarrard, but he also hosts the monthly Sofa Sessions, in which songwriters are invited to perform at Brenau’s John Jacobs Jr. Business and Mass Communications Building on Green Street in Gainesville.
“What I enjoy most is writing [songs] with people, and that’s what I advise students at Brenau to do. I try to teach them you don’t have to play a guitar to songwrite, nor do you have to know a lot of chords. It’s not as complicated as you think.”
He also advised that songwriting is a skill to hone constantly, not just every now and then, if you are serious about getting into it. “I used to write every day, three or more times a day. Just write solid.”
You can hear excerpts and watch a trailer for the album at www.lorettalynn.com. The song is also featured on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xnGmy-m9rw .
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/3/380320/brenaus-bruce-burch-has-song-on-loretta-lynns-new-album