Know Your Worth: Lucy Woodward on a Professional Singer Career (Episode 87)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

Lucy Woodward is an English-American singer-songwriter with four studio albums on Atlantic, GroundUP and Verve, the latest released on Snarky Puppy bandleader Michael League's label. She has sung backgrounds for Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Chaka Khan and Joe Cocker, co-wrote Stacie Orrico's top 40 hit "(There's Gotta Be) More to Life" the same year her own single "Dumb Girls" charted, and has a duo project with guitarist Charlie Hunter.

She and Nomad go back about 11 years, to a TV taping where she was singing backgrounds and he was playing Spanish guitar. Within a couple of weeks they had written a song together, "Purple Heart," in about 20 minutes, and she still performs it. In Episode 87 of The Career Musician, Lucy gets real about the decisions that shape a singer's career: when to commit, what you are worth, and when to walk away.

Go through the machine, then find yourself

Lucy signed to Atlantic in 2003 and had a top 40 single. It was fast: go, go, go, then dropped just as quickly. In that world she was told to lose weight, lie about her age, wear this, don't wear that. She has no regrets, but she came out of it not knowing who she was as an artist.

So she took her royalty checks and made an indie record in her basement. A friend challenged her to write a song a day, finished or not, to break out of the pop mindset. That record led to years of singing her own material around New York, and eventually Verve started coming to her shows.

Nomad loved that part. She didn't buy the fancy car. She reinvested in herself. That is Make Music Your Business.

Build the skill and the art

Lucy started getting paid to sing backgrounds around 19 or 20: first $50, then $100, then weddings, then five gigs a weekend. That is where the chops get built. A jingle producer took her under his wing early on and told her she was musical and versatile, just not fast yet. She learned to pick up music fast, hear harmonies right away, and bring musicality to a short session.

That is the skill of being a singer, she says, and then there's the art. A career is the balance of both.

Know what you're worth, on paper

Lucy goes to her singers union meetings, because there will always be a producer asking to skip the paperwork and call it a day. She once got hired to stack huge background parts and ghost the lead vocals for a very young artist on a major-label pop album. She added up the union rates per track, per song, honestly, and it came out to over $50,000. The label freaked out. She knew what the band was getting and where they were recording, so she negotiated down a little and still got a nice check.

Nomad's rule on negotiating:

"You're not really negotiating unless you're willing to walk away, period, end of story... If you can't say no thanks, then you're not negotiating."

Nomad, 25:04

He lived it: after playing the American Idol live tour, he was called back with an offer so low he said no thank you, politely. He could, because he had been planting seeds everywhere else. Lucy's flip side: you can usually tell who really needs what only you can offer, and those are the gigs she would almost do for free. That is Savvy, and Objectivity, from the ETHOS code. You are negotiating your worth, not your self-worth.

Say yes as the sub, then make it your own

Lucy noticed a pattern: she keeps getting gigs as a sub. In one year she opened for Snarky Puppy, with the band backing her, four to a hotel room, crowds of seven to 200. She also subbed for the lead singer of Pink Martini, learning a huge repertoire in multiple languages fast. Then a friend in Rod Stewart's band called her to sing on a record. She was on her way to the dentist. He told her Rod won't wait, so she turned around. She subbed on that tour for months, and ended up staying four and a half years.

"Both tours were amazing... One paid zero, one paid a salary... But I felt my heart was in the right place. I was just like, this is what I do."

Lucy Woodward, 34:55

She knows she works well under pressure: learn a pile of music in five days and go. That is Everything you do is an audition, and Luck = preparation + opportunity.

Leave well, and stay kind

Taking the Rod gig full time meant putting her own music on the back burner. A couple of years in, she had notebooks of voice memos, and she started putting her salary into the next record. Leaving was scary. She told a friend in the band first, then the MD, then management, then Rod, who got choked up, told her to go write and tour, and gave her a big hug. They remain friends.

Nomad shared his own exit: he left Babyface in late 2019 after 12 years, and the first months were hard. He leaned on meditation, journaling and working out, and he and Kenny Edmonds remain friends.

"Always try to make it amicable. Never, you know, flip tables... because it's not going to be good for you in the long run. You got to stay kind."

Nomad, 49:29

Lucy agreed, and added that working with difficult people is one of the best teachers you will get. You don't have to like them. You do have to respect the situation. That is Low maintenance / no drama.

Space is an instrument, and so is 10 minutes a day

Lucy and Charlie Hunter went from a last-minute tour to a duo record of reimagined blues and pop covers and roughly 190 dates in 2019. Then 2020 canceled about 80 gigs. Her biggest lesson from Charlie: in a trio, the fourth instrument is the space around you. Learn when not to sing.

With the road on hold, she took a weekly sight-singing class through the union. And her advice to any singer starting out is simple: do your 10 minutes of scales a day, or write for 10 minutes a day. In that moment, you are a singer. You are a writer. It becomes part of your fabric.

The takeaway

Lucy's path runs through a major-label whirlwind, an indie reset, van tours and arenas, and a lot of hard decisions in between. Know who you are. Know what you're worth. Say yes when the call comes, and leave with grace when it is time. If you have a big call coming up, prepare like a pro with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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