Creating collaboration between musicians and songwriters, GreyHaven Community has created the first of its kind in Birmingham by providing songwriters an outlet for their work to come full circle.
“We want to create a community for musicians and artists to get out of their comfort zone, out of their bubble, and get them to create great music through collaboration,” says GreyHaven’s Technical Coordinator Corey Scogin.
Four to six times a year, GreyHaven sets up a performance for ten songwriters in local venues, such as Avondale Brewery, Urban Standard and Mountain Brook Community Church’s University Christian Fellowship house.
Caleb Chancy, founder of Grey Haven, created this community four years ago through word of mouth and personal connections. GreyHaven now has an abundance of musicians collaborating with each other.
“One of the most rewarding parts of this organization comes when a song writer brings a song in its rough and unfiltered form and then works with the other musicians and is able to pull something together that comes out beautifully,” Scogin says.
College student Laura Lynn Williams has been working with GreyHaven for about two years now as a songwriter and musician.
“Grey Haven was the only place I was surrounded fully by musicians and was challenged to mature in my musicality,” Williams says. “It was interesting to see what I already had and get to see a song come to life with a full band. Often times, songwriters don’t get an opportunity like that.”
Williams compares working with the other musicians of Grey Haven as a kind of mentorship. She says that Grey Haven creates an environment that backs your mission as a songwriter.
“In Birmingham you don’t expect to come across as many musicians as you do,” Williams says. “A lot of songwriters can get stuck in a no mans land when they don’t have a community to support them. Caleb is a really creative guy and came up with a really great solution for song writers.”
Before every show, Grey Haven will send out a newsletter to announce the show’s details and request songwriters. From there, they select 10 writers and have them work directly with musicians from the community to coordinate their sets for the shows. They encourage each writer to select multiple musicians, as their main focus is on the collaboration of each show. Almost every performance is recorded and posted on their website.
For more information visit greyhavencommunity.com.