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LYNN GILLESPIE CHATER

After perfecting the craft of songwriting through the Nashville Songwriters Association International’s workshops for two years, and beating her head against the Music Row wall for three years, Lynn Gillespie finally realized that, if she wanted to be a part of Nashville’s famed Music Row and get any songs recorded, she needed to have the XY chromosome. Not having been born with that little piece of good fortune, she decided to become a “man”. She had a picture taken of a male friend from L.A. and made up a great bio for an alter-ego she named, Jesse Read. He drove a combine and harvested wheat in Kansas, where he started writing songs after long hours crisscrossing many miles of wheat fields. He then brought those songs to Nashville and worked as a bartender accumulating many stories that he incorporated into new songs. It wasn’t long before Jesse Read started getting cuts, and when Highway 101 recorded “I Can’t Love You Baby” (co-written with Kerry Chater and Tommy Rocco) he was mentioned in the national publication People magazine.

After losing three writer’s contracts to three different Music Row publishing companies when they found out Jesse Read was really a girl, Barry Beckett, primo producer of Muscle Shoals fame, took a chance by signing Lynn under her own name. She told Barry that it would take longer for a woman to have success, but he liked the songs he heard and signed her anyway. Two years later they finally got their first major cut together: “Have A Nice Day” on Mindy McCready’s Ten Thousand Angels CD, which earned double Platinum sales.

Since that time, Lynn has had major cuts for many artists including: Anne Murray (two CDs and a song on her TV Special, An Intimate Evening With Anne Murray), Paul Brandt (three CDs, a #1 song, and Song Of The Year nomination in Canada), Lorrie Morgan, Restless Heart, Eddy Raven, Jessica Andrews, Mindy McCready, Highway 101, The Bankesters, NuBlu, and Donna Ulisse with the single, “Trouble At The Door”, the title cut for Donna’s Atlantic Records CD. Lynn had further successes with Donna Ulisse and The Poor Mountain Boys’ Bluegrass CDs: Walk This Mountain Down, Holy Waters, Easy Climb, and their Christmas CD, All The Way To Bethlehem.

Lynn has had numerous independent cuts and last year her songs could be heard on radios in twenty-three foreign countries as well as the U.S. Her songs have been made into videos, commercials, and the Jessica Andrews cut “You Go First (Do You Wanna Kiss)” was used to advertise the movie, Forces of Nature, starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck.

Lynn and her husband and writing partner, Kerry Chater, have written two major Christian musicals, both of which have been performed several times in Nashville. They have just finished their third musical, a comedy (co-written with Emmy and Tony-nominated lyricist/librettist Ellen Fitzhugh), CURED! How Crazy Is That!?!

Lynn and Kerry have written, engineered, and produced CDs for three Christian artists, as well as four solo CDs for Kerry Chater.

In addition to writing songs and musicals, Lynn and Kerry have delved into writing novels. Their thrillers, Kill Point and Blood Debt, both made it onto the Amazon Best Sellers list. The third novel in the trilogy, Collusion, is coming soon.

Over the last twenty-five years Lynn has traveled to Washington D.C. to lobby for copyright protection and has been active in seven pieces of legislation passed by Congress and made into law to protect the creators of Intellectual Property.

Lynn is a Lifetime member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) where she served on the Legislative Committee, has served on the Steering Committee of the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA), the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS – The Grammys), is a Lifetime member of the Gospel Music Association (GMA), and is a member of the Country Music Association (CMA), Global Songwriters Connection (GSC) and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA). Lynn currently resides in Brentwood, TN, and has been writing with her husband, Kerry, since they met on a blind date in 1986.