Fremont men team up on songwriting

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) - They’ll tell you they’re a good team.

Bob Olsen is a former instrumental music teacher.

Tom Adamson is a business professor, who likes writing lyrics.

Together, the two Fremont men have been writing songs for the last 1 ½ years.

Adamson writes the lyrics and Olsen the melody for songs that tell stories in different musical styles - such as western, modern jazz and, sometimes, blues and ballads.

They’ve put their work in two books and already have some dreams, according to the Fremont Tribune.

Olsen would like groups to record their work and for the songs to become well known. He’s considered the possibility of a show featuring their music being performed locally.

In the meantime, the men are enjoying the upbeat tempo that develops when composers and lyricists harmonize well.

Adamson, who’ll turn 70 in May, was a kid when he noticed that if the music he heard was slow, he’d have about 10 seconds to make up a rhyme.

He picked up the idea of writing lyrics as a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After graduating from college, Adamson worked as a manager at dime stores, then got into teaching while writing lyrics on the side.

Adamson was 25 when he began writing lyrics.

In 1989, Adamson came to Midland University, where he taught for 29 years as a business professor. He retired in 2018 and is an adjunct professor at Metropolitan Community and Iowa Western colleges.

Throughout the years, Adamson has written lyrics, but has faced limitations when it comes to composing the music.

So he self-published his lyrics in books, which he’s sold to libraries and college students.

Adamson’s also had poetry readings at Keene Memorial Library in Fremont, where he’s been tutoring a man in business on Tuesday nights.

One night, Adamson asked now-retired library aide Susan Allen if she knew of anyone with whom he could write songs.

She suggested Olsen.

“I contacted Bob and the rest is song,” Adamson said.

At age 91, Olsen has a musical background that spans decades. His father, Walter, taught instrumental music in the Fremont Public Schools system for many years.

Bob Olsen was in sixth grade when he played his first professional job. He went on to play with several bands.

He traveled with the Dick Wickman band to New York City and Chicago for live shows on WLS and WGN radio.

Olsen’s television career included weekly performances on KOLN-TV in Lincoln for eight years.

He later earned a master’s degree from UNL. His father retired from teaching at FHS in 1961 and that year Olsen began teaching instrumental music for FPS. He did that for the next 35 years.

Today, Olsen teaches instrumental music at the Masonic Home-Eastern Star Home for Children in Fremont.

And he works on songs with Adamson.

“We’ve written a lot of songs together,” Olsen said. “Every week, Tom brings me a folder. He’ll bring me lyrics and I write the music.”

They’ve had some good sessions, adjusting lyrics to the melody.

“So the tires fit the vehicle,” Adamson explained.

For the lyrics, Adamson may begin with a mental picture of a guy – other than himself.

It could be a cowboy with a guitar.

“And I have to put words in his mouth. So what would he want to talk about? What would he want to lament and what would he want to glorify?” Adamson said.

Adamson looks at life and situations. He’ll open up a theme or ask a question with the music carrying the message.

Like most writers, he seeks to give listeners room to explore their own thoughts in relationship to the words.

Adamson said the writing has become internal therapy.

“They’re either deeply about me or simply observing people,” he said. “People will give you the lines if you just listen.”

Adamson will bring his words to Olsen.

“I run the words through my head and I think about how the words would best fit the melody and I hear it in my mind and jot it down,” Olsen said.

The song’s words and story dictate whether Olsen uses a major - or bright key - or minor - a dark key.

Using an analogy learned from a fourth-grade student, Olsen said a minor key is like when it’s dark and rainy outside.

A major key is bright and happy.

“I try to vary the melodies to fit the words and to make the sound picture coordinate with the story Tom has written,” Olsen said.

The two men work in tandem.

“We have a few changes and it doesn’t take long to get through a song,” Adamson said. “He’s got the melody and I’ve got the words and we edit together.”

The two regret having not met earlier.

But better late than never, they agree.

They value their collaboration.

Adamson appreciates the chance to work with a gentleman whom he said has considerable talent.

“It’s been an honor,” Adamson said.

Olsen also appreciates is his song-writing associate.

“Our association is a godsend,” Olsen said. “Between Tom and the Masonic Home - working with those kids - it’s kept me a bit younger.”

Adamson said they’ve joked that if they ever had a music publishing company it would be called, “Boom,” using the first two letters of Bob’s name and the last two of Tom’s.

“But really, the name, ‘Boom,’ with his incredible background in jazz and swinging jazz would be a pretty descriptive name of what we try to do,” Adamson said.

For now, they’ll continue their songwriting endeavors.

“Both of us deeply respect the power of music, the power of songs and take the idea of songwriting seriously,” Adamson said. “There’s been a lot of major hits where the whole song is fluff, which is great, but that’s not what we’ve got here.”