Jamie Meltzer

Documentary maker.

Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story (2003) -- A very good documentary about "song-poems," recordings that are made when regular folk send in lyrics for musicians to set to music, for a fee. This documentary speaks to the dude from NRBQ who has a sweet understanding of why these songs are often great, the son of the late Rodd Keith (the most famous song-poem singer), three of the musicians who still make song-poems, and a handful of the lyricists themselves. This will make you want to go out and find song-poems; fortunately, there are already some very good collections made of them that are readily available. (I'd strongly recommend the Christmas collection.)