Every year, hundreds, more like thousands, of hopeful songwriters converge on Nashville, Tenn., looking for publishing deals. 

Realizing such a dream means a publisher will take everything  you write and critique, tweak, demo and pitch the songs to artists, producers and executives at the records labels. 

Two local songwriters have nabbed a publishing deal with a major Music City publisher (Ray Stevens Music) without so much as leaving the city limits of Shreveport. 

Friends since kindergarten, Pat Mason and Patrick Johnson received a call from another old friend, Tom Logan, who resides in California and is in the film business. “Tom called me one day out of the blue to tell me he was making a film in Shreveport and wanted me and Patrick to write an original song for the movie,” Mason said.“Our first run at it proved to be a little risqué for how Tom saw the film. So we wrote another one, and Tom and everyone involved loved it,” Johnson said.

The film is called “Campin’ Buddies” and was filmed at Fox Creek Farms in Shreveport. Among the cast was Tom Lester (remembered as Eb on the classic “Green Acres”), Donnie Most (Ralph Malph on “Happy Days”) and Victoria Jackson (known for “Saturday Night Live”). 

But, most fortuitously, the production included legendary singer/songwriter Ray Stevens. Stevens wrote and recorded the timeless classic “Everything Is Beautiful” as well as a number of novelty hits of the ’60s including “Ahab the Arab” and “The Streak.” Stevens not only acts in the film but is providing many of the songs.

“When Ray heard our song, ‘Double Wide Momma,’ he really loved it. He wanted to hear other of our material and liked all of our songs so much that he asked who our publisher was,”
Johnson said.

“We told him we were just self-published, and he then said he would like to sign us to a publishing deal with his company in Nashville, Ray Stevens Music,” Mason said.

Mason fronts a local band, Bayou Boogie for which he is lead singer and multiple instrumentalist and Johnson is a lyricist. 

The two friends have been writing songs together for quite some time and cannot believe their good fortune. Mason is a retired commercial pilot who now devotes himself to music, and Johnson was a Shreveport fireman until an explosion and fire in 1985. Johnson was the only survivor of the fire and was burned over 72 percent  of his body (42 percent third-degree). Since that fire, he has devoted himself to fire safety work, having founded the Percy R.  Johnson Burn Foundation and lecturing all across the country and even as far as Russia.

Also a cancer survivor, Johnson moved back to Shreveport in 2012 to be near his children, and he and Mason have focused on their joint songwriting. The connection with Logan’s project and Ray Stevens were certainly serendipitous.