We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steven McClintock a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Steven thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I was born and raised in Texas and lived in the town of Beaumont where I had a ton of different musical influences. I started as a singer-artist and morphed into a singer-songwriter. During that time, I also got interested in the business side as a Publisher and Producer.
Had my first major cut in 1978 with a country artist named Juice Newton that charted on Billboard I believe in the top 30.
I went from having a Publishing deal with my high school friend David Fertitta at Island Music, to a record deal with Clive Davis at Arista Records, to another Publishing deal at the Welk Group, and then on to write for George Tobin Music, where I got to create songs for a brand new artist signing with MCA records named Tiffany.
The first record sold over 4 million copies in the US and I had one song on it called “Kid on a Corner”, a co-write with Tim James, then immediately started writing for the second record, which I had two songs on and the biggest single that charted at #6 on the Pop Billboard charts. That song was called “All This Time”.
The other song on that album “Oh Jackie”, was a hit in Japan and a commercial for Yamaha.
From there, ended up writing music on about 20 independent films learning to score while continuing to write songs for George Tobin music. We worked on two PC Quest records on RCA, Taja Seville, and other artist that George Tobin was producing.
In 1990, we were asked to write songs for the Jetsons: The Movie via Hanna Barbera and on MCA records.
I think I wrote five songs on the film and sang lead vocals on as an artist on 2. Also had the highest charting single off that record called. “I Always Thought I’d see you Again” sung by Tiffany.
Moving forward, we wrote a song that was used on the PC Quest second album, that later George released with Tiffany on lead vocal. It was a smash it in Asia staying at number one in Hong Kong for eight weeks, called “If Love is Blind”.
That particular song has gone on to get almost 20 different recordings and artist around the world. Country, jazz, Pop, and even dance..
Over the years, Tim James and I and our music publishing company have written or signed over 5000 songs with McJames Music Inc/37 Songs. As a publisher, I’ve had songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Jr, Juice Newton, the Nelsons, A Touch of Class, Shiny Toy Guns, Aaron Tippin, Rose Maddox, Victoria Shaw, White Apple Tree, songs used in commercials like Motorola Razor, Bacardi, Honda, Ralph Lauren, TV shows like the Gossip Girls, Brothers and Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money, Ugly Betty, the L Word, and films like Wall Street, Illegally Yours, Iron Man 2, Blood and Chocolate, and more.
I produced projects for Michael Peterson, White Apple Tree, Kevin Fisher and dozens of commercial jingles.
Along the way, I was a performer with Victoria Shaw opening up for Garth Brooks at Central Park for 1 million people, I performed on TV singing backgrounds for Phil Collins, I sang backgrounds with BJ Thomas, Elvira, Freddy Fender, Benny Barnes, Juice Newton, Victoria Shaw, Don Williams, Gene Watson and more.
During covid in 2021, there was no work using my skills in California so I decided to move back to my beloved home state of Texas where I begin performing live again and subsequently all over the world. My last tour in 2024 took me to three countries, 13 states and 69 gigs.
And the story continues….

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I consider myself a songwriter/teacher and a singer of course. I know a lot about the music business as well and I do seminars and such… talking about Publishing, song pitching, licensing, etc.
As a songwriter, I’m a bit of a doctor. I can hear things that I can fix by maybe adding a bridge, reducing the length, changing the tempo, things that’ll make the song stronger, of course as always, just my opinion. The nature of my world.
I started a record label back in the early 80s called 37 Records with the intent to get product out there in the worldwide marketplace. But I also used it as a base to place masters so the film and TV world would have and use that information.

In order to promote one of our early Christmas songs, we released an album on my father, Don McClintock, and that was heard by Andy Williams team where he released that year, on the Bob Hope Christmas special and an album produced by Michael Lloyed. That record has gone on to be on 30+ compilations around the world and was also cut by Pat Boone, Juice Newton, Wikity Wak and more.
37 Records also released White Apple Tree in Germany receiving a gold record for the movie “Kokowaah”, classic record by Michael Peterson, another gold record by Robin Schulz and pingpong, a cool country record by Paul Jefferson, and a funny and smart album by Kevin Fisher, a 12 pack of beer songs. “Beer Me”.
Also, for the last two years, I’ve been releasing singles of my performances, which has included a couple of number ones in the UK.
Along with that, I’ve been working with an organization called Operation Song that was founded by Songwriter Bob Reagan. My co-writer, Dickie Kaiser introduced me to this group and they allowed me to come in to their program and write songs with veterans and first responders. It’s amazing therapy for both of us and I’m very very proud to be a part of it. I’ve written six songs with these brave people and continue getting feedback from the men and women I’ve written with on how our song has moved their world. I do my best to always be available when they call…and at this point, work out of the Bandera Texas Warriors Heart location.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I believe on the creative journey and really the business journey as well, that the ups and downs, twist and turns and backtracking that happens, or part of the journey in the learning. There are no mistakes.
In the old days, you would follow what your people before you did, now everything is about creating a new path. The old things don’t work the same way or as well. So for the last 15+ years my focus has been how to think on my feet better, how to pivot at the place I need to versus stopping and overthinking it. I shoot a lot from the hip, but use my knowledge of the past, successes and failures, in order to move forward. One thing I do better now is to be present and in the moment, making sure I feel something and can pull that feeling back up when needed.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I really love the connection that songwriting brings, and that can be anything from co-writing to just delivering a song on stage. But I’ve also found as I’ve embraced it, that you can get a similar connection with the music of business. There’s so much enthusiasm when songwriters learn something new they didn’t know or think about, that they probably needed to know! So I’m able to pull both of my worlds together for this sort of thing and it really makes me feel creative artistically and also creative in my business, delivering important information that I believe these folks need and want to hear.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stevenmcclintock.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCihQVZMIwi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1EWMMzT6vb/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-mcclintock-49a82b1?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
• Twitter: https://x.com/headway37?s=21
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/stevenmcclintock
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/stevenmcclintock
• Other: https://www.google.com/search?q=steven+mcclintock&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1042US1042&oq=&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgBEEUYOxjCAzIJCAAQRRg7GMIDMgkIARBFGDsYwgMyCQgCEEUYOxjCAzIJCAMQRRg7GMIDMgkIBBBFGDsYwgMyCQgFEEUYOxjCAzIJCAYQRRg7GMIDMgkIBxBFGDsYwgPSAQk0NzM4ajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Image Credits

Wendi Rapp, Terri Quinlan, Alec Watson