Fred Koller (born March 5, 1950, in Chicago) is an American singer-songwriter. He has been active in the music business since 1973. Fred lives and works in Nashville with his wife Trish and their cat Buddy.
Koller has written over 300 songs which have been recorded. He was awarded the BMI Millionaire Performance Award for both "Angel Eyes" and "She Came from Fort Worth". Koller also won BMI Awards for "This Dream's on Me", "Goin' Gone", "Life As We Knew It" and "Will It Be Love By Morning". He is the former Vice President of The Nashville Songwriters Association International. Koller has taught for Songwriters Guild of America and was a staff instructor for both the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Augusta Heritage Festival.
Koller opened his first bookstore in Capitola, California, in 1975. It was located a few blocks from the ocean on Bay Ave. and was called Words and Music. The shop stocked an eclectic collection of used records, books and sheet music. After two years the store moved to an old fisherman's cottage where Fred and his first wife, majolica artist Farraday Newsome, lived upstairs.
In 1979 Fred sold his bookstore and moved back to Nashville, Tennessee. He opened Rhino Booksellers in Nashville in Oct. 2001. There are presently two locations.
Koller is the author of How to Pitch and Promote Your Songs[1] which is in its third edition. He also contributed to The Homespun Songwriter's Workshop and taught Homespun Tapes: Developing Your Lyrics.
Children's author Shel Silverstein was spending a lot of time on his houseboat in Sausalito, California, and would often visit to write songs and explore Santa Cruz, California.
In 1974, Silverstein and Koller began writing their first song together. Silverstein was already famous for his Playboy cartoons, children's books and several songwriting hits for artists like Doctor Hook and Johnny Cash. Their collaboration grew into a friendship that would last for the next 25 years.
On one two-week trip together to Santa Cruz, California [2] they wrote a dozen songs like "Don’t Knock The Music (You Were Made To)" and "Lovely Margarita," which features a transvestite strip tease artist unveiling the "secrets of an ancient world's delight." Other encounters produced "Little Green Buttons," which introduces listeners to a woman saving a dying marriage with carefully placed tattoos, and "The Happy Caucasian," which chronicles a modern-day Johnny Appleseed who spreads joy and jubilation all across the nation while "singing out good news." Country singer Bobby Bare recorded a version of "This Guitar Is for Sale," and Robert Earl Keen, Conway Twitty and Bare have all recorded versions of the first song Koller and Silverstein wrote together, "Jennifer Johnson and Me". A few more were recorded on Fred's "Night of The Living Fred" release.
| Song Title | Artist | |
|---|---|---|
| Ain’t It Been Love | Vern Gosdin | |
| Alabama Bad | Marshall Chapman | |
| Jeff Healey Band, New Grass Revival, John Hiatt | ||
| Bachelor Girl | Baillie & the Boys | |
| Blind Luck | Peter Case | |
| Boomtown | Lacy J. Dalton | |
| Breaking Up This Happy Home | Brendan Croker | |
| Caught in the Spotlight | Bobby Bare & Lacy J. Dalton | |
| Circumstantial Evidence | Jerry Lee Lewis | |
| Count the Days | Don Dixon | |
| Daddy Was a Sensitive Man | Reverend Billy C. Wirtz, Ironweed | |
| Don’t Knock The Music | Sean Seman | |
| Don’t The Good Times | Rosemary Clooney | |
| Drink American | Peter Stampfel | |
| Driving You Out Of My Mind | Joyce Woodson | |
| Eli Whitney | Kay Adams | |
| Elvis Was A Narc | ||
| Everytime The Whistle Whines | Tony Sarno | |
| Everything You’d Never Want to Be | Joe Brock | |
| Exactly What I Thought She’d Do | ||
| Fan The Flame | Benita Hill | |
| Feels Real | Afrikan Dreamland | |
| Fool Like That | Gina Jeffreys | |
| Fourth Wife Blues | ||
| Gauloise Blue | Jonathan Pointer | |
| Give Me Some Of That | Fred James, C. J. Chenier, Jr. | |
| Giving Up The Ghost | ||
| Pat Alger, Mary Black, Forester Sisters, Nanci Griffith, Kathy Mattea, Alison Krauss (live versions exist), Woodstock Mountain Revue | ||
| Goodnight Little Houseplant | Bobby Bare, Shel Silverstein | |
| Habits of The Heart | The Woodys | |
| Heart To Heart | Gail Davies | |
| Heart Of A Woman | Terri Gibbs | |
| House of Cards | The New Seekers | |
| I Don't Have The Right | J. T. Hall | |
| I’d Rather Wear Out Than Rust | The Hard Travelers | |
| If Love Hurts | Mary Ann Brandon, Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women | |
| I Get The Picture | Keith Whitley | |
| I Got Your Number | Dave Edmunds, Al Anderson, Albert Lee, Blues and Trouble, Eddy Raven | |
| If You Came Back Tonight | Lorrie Morgan | |
| I’ll Be There For You | Brendan Croker, Celeste Krenz | |
| I’m Going To Town | Robert Earl Keen | |
| I’m Still Feeling Blue | J. D. Myers | |
| In My Dreams | Asleep at the Wheel | |
| I Never Got To Say Goodbye | Bill Staines | |
| It Doesn’t Matter What The People Say | Peter Case | |
| It Makes No Difference Now | Joyce Woodson | |
| I Wanna Live | Annie Hughes | |
| I Want My Rib Back | ||
| I Want To Know | Robert Earl Keen | |
| I Was Going Home | Hundred/Seventy Split | |
| I’ve Loved Enough To Know | Jim Rushing | |
| Jennifer Johnson and Me | ||
| Juanita | David Allan Coe, Burl Ives | |
| King Gets A Day Job | Reverend Billy C. Wirtz | |
| Lady Jane | Max D. Barnes | |
| Last Time I Looked | Peter Case | |
| Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian | Jonathan Edwards, John Prine, Wild Jimbos, Tom Rush, Those Darlins' | |
| Life As We Knew It | Kathy Mattea | |
| Little Green Buttons | Lui Collins | |
| Lone Star State of Mind | Pat Alger, Nanci Griffith, Don Williams, Lorrie Morgan | |
| Love Can Be a Dangerous Thing | Pat Alger | |
| Love Will Always Find Its Way | Pierce Pettis | |
| Lovers On the Rebound | Marie Bottrell, The Younger Brothers | |
| Make It Pretty For Me | Lilian Askeland, Bobby Bare, Tom Bresh, Suzanne Klee, Helen O'Conner, Tex Williams | |
| Man's Best Friend is His Automobile | Barry and Holly Tashian | |
| Margarita Hell | ||
| Mary Goes Round | Stu Stevens | |
| Melancholy Moon | Tim O'Brien | |
| Midnight Chauffeur | Marshall Chapman | |
| Missionary Ridge | Claire Lynch | |
| Monroe's Mule | John Cowan | |
| My Baby’s Like a Jukebox | Jason Sever, Bub Tyler | |
| Niagara Falls | Bill Lloyd | |
| Neutral Ground | Pierce Pettis | |
| Never Be The Same | Pam Tillis | |
| New Day | Laurie Lewis | |
| New Old Friend | The New Seekers, The Hard Travelers | |
| Not To Old To Cry | Kenny Serrat | |
| Off To A Crawling Start | Keith Whitley | |
| Old Blues Singer | Lowell Fulsom | |
| On Grafton Street | Frances Black, Nanci Griffith | |
| Open Your Eyes | Brian Austin | |
| Pale Wind | Larry Crane | |
| Piece of Paper | Larry Crane | |
| Pretty Painted Ladies | Bobby Bare, Chris LeDoux, Plainsmen, Sons of the Pioneers | |
| Pull Together | David Mallett | |
| Red Neck State of Art | Brendan Croker | |
| Rock In My Shoe | Tim O'Brien | |
| Rock Stars Lament | Bobby Bare | |
| Room 309 | Reverend Billy C. Wirtz | |
| Sassafrass | Coon Creek Girls | |
| Kathy Mattea, Pat Alger | ||
| She Loves Me She Loves Me Not | Hal Ketchum | |
| She's Just a Place To Fall | Vern Gosdin | |
| Shop Shop | The Bama Band, Erin's Pride, James White | |
| Sidestepping The Blues | Stonewall Jackson | |
| Skip A Stone | Beccy Cole | |
| Somebody Else’s Tune | Marge Calhoun | |
| Some of That | Fred James, C. J. Chenier | |
| Something To Hold On To | Joyce Woodson | |
| Stand Still | Brothers Brooks | |
| Stars on The Water | Priscilla Herdman | |
| Stolen Art | Jeff Wilkinson | |
| Strong Young Breeze | Sean Seman | |
| Summer Melody | Stoney Edwards, The Kendalls | |
| Taking My Chances With You | The New Seekers | |
| Tell Me I'm Mistaken | J. T. Hall | |
| The TV Tells Me So | Smothers Brothers | |
| Tell Me What You Want | ||
| The Town With No Downtown | Jeff Wilkinson | |
| The First Time | Danny O'Keefe | |
| There’s No Guarantee | Al Anderson | |
| Gene Watson | ||
| This Guitar is For Sale | Bobby Bare, Wes McGee, John Prine | |
| This Time I'm Gonna Be Loved | J. T. Hall | |
| This Town | Pat Alger | |
| Til The Coast Is Clear | Hal Ketchum | |
| True Western Movie | Chris LeDoux | |
| Twenty-Nine | Todd Dereemer | |
| Walking With My Memories | Loretta Lynn | |
| We’re History | Atlanta | |
| Wheel of Fortune | Peter Rowan | |
| When It’s Gone | Tom Paxton | |
| When The Sun Comes Up | Tammi Fassert | |
| When You Ran With Me | Hank Flamingo | |
| Where The Fast Lane Ends | ||
| Where the Blue Began | Hundred/Seventy Split | |
| Whicita Way | John Cowan | |
| Whiplash Will | Bobby Bare | |
| Will It Be Love By Morning | Michael Martin Murphey | |
| Winding Down | Lacy J. Dalton | |
| With Out The Love | The New Seekers | |
| Words Said In The Dark | Pierce Pettis | |
| Yard Sale | Jonathan Pointer | |
| Yes Mr. Rogers | Bob Gibson, Shel Silverstein | |
| You Can’t Take The Texas | ||
| You Don’t Mean A Thing | Al Anderson |