ABOUT
Craig Whitley - Songwriter
"It's Never Too Late"
America's Most Profilic new Songwriter is 77 Years Young!
To say that Craig Whitley is a prolific and passionate songwriter is a major understatement. His story and path to writing and producing his own music is both amusing and amazing. Craig’s first song, “Nashville Dreams,” was written 51 years ago, on a business trip while driving from Shreveport, Louisiana to Magnolia, Arkansas — a little creative project that came out of necessity once he got outside the reach of his favorite radio stations, turned off his radio and starting humming a tune he made up on the fly. By the time he had reached Magnolia he had completed the song straight to his memory, rushed to his motel room to write “Nashville Dreams” down before it slipped his mind.
For the next 51 years Craig would brag about having the melody for “Nashville Dreams” stuck in his head and one day he would learn music composition and write the melody. Over the years he has sung the song countless times in the shower, or to the rolling eyes of his wife and children — no one really taking him seriously. This dream eventually became a pipedream that was pushed far back on the back burner for 51 years while Craig built companies, changed careers that led to him working in 52 different countries, raised a family, started having grandkids.
Eventually, at the age of 67, Craig retired for a grand total of 15 days and found life too slow and he wasn’t ready to retire yet. On day 16 of his retire he formed World Energy Consultants, LLC and launched his own energy consulting company — a role that has kept him very busy performing consulting assignments for international companies and brokering liquefied petroleum products to foreign importers.
Back in 2015, when retirement from BP was was only months away, Craig grabbed a pen and yellow legal pad and jotted down publishing “Nashville Dreams” as one of 20 significant achievements he wanted to accomplish before he died — his official “bucket list.”
However, when Craig threw the world a curve ball by only retiring for 15 days and hopped back into international energy consulting, he quickly became extremely busy devoting time to his new business. You guess it, his dream of publishing “Nashville Dreams” continued to collect dust as his bucket list sat to one side of his desk. Other items on the list did get checked off. A professed workaholic and overachiever, Craig pursued and earned his MBA from Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) when he was 67, making him the oldest MBA graduate in Ole Miss history. Over time, more bucket list items got checked off, but not “Nashville Dreams.”
Then, in mid-July 2025 Craig had an epiphany, “Why should I spend months or years learning music composition, I already have experience using Adobe Audition, the audio editing software that came out many years ago, I bet audio processing and music generation software has already evolved to a level that I might be able to learn how to create my own melodies and produce my own music. In less than ten days, “Nashville Dreams” had Craig’s original melody, the one he had sung to for years. At last he had completed another bucket list item, demonstrating that “it’s never too late.”
What we’ve failed to tell you is how creative Craig Whitley is, as he’s written over 60 poems in his life and written countless thousands of pages of reports and analytical studies as an oil and gas consultant. He’s also known far and wide by friends and loved ones a master storyteller. He has forgotten very little about his childhood because throughout his life he has shared stories of his mishaps, experiences, escapades, travels, growing up on a Louisiana farm, and the joy’s of going to a small town high school countless times.
Craig is a confessed romantic and loves writing poems and songs about love and romance. His personal playlist is over 2,500 songs long and it includes every music genre one can image. As you will find from listening to his songs, he writes with the emotions and thoughts of his heart and soul, and lets his lyrics and vision determine what genre will best deliver his song’s message and story effectively.
Once Craig published “Nashville Dreams,” his OCD-level passion for writing kicked in and he has since written 120 songs in only 80 days of discovering his newfound passion. Many of his songs come from his personal experiences. Others are inspired by the vast array of experiences he’ s had in life. None of his songs have been written by AI. Once you hear his music you will be surprised by the breathe and variety of the subjects and genre he’s already completed, proving what one can do at any age if they have he passion, drive and determination to leave explore the talents God gave them and not be afraid of failure.
Craig feels that for every ten songs he has written, he has at least one that topped his own hopes and dreams of how far he could take his songwriting skills and talent. Songs like “Dakota in Mourning,” “Music Manifesto,” “Eyes That Talked,” “One Last Time Dear,” “Sealed Memories,” “John Roderick Columbus Brown,” “French Quarter Morning,” “First Flame of Love,” “Living in a Headline World” and “One Bad Ass!” are perfect examples of Craig’s songwriting skills and variety.
When asked “How long do you want to write and create music Craig?” — he states simply, “That’s in God’s hands, but two goals I know I’ll achieve in songwriting are: (1) I’ll write until the day I die, and (2), The Beatles wrote and published 188 songs in 7 years. I want to write 189 songs in seven months, and I’m far head of schedule on that goal.
What are Craig’s immediate plans? “Keep on writing, keep on creating and producing, officially launching my website with 17 albums that I’m still writing and populating. Then my focus will turn to more social media, music promotion, getting the word out. If you know someone in radio that would like to interview a songwriter with a very different story and road to the music industry — I’m your guy. I call “Nashville Dreams,” America’s longest procrastination project. But while it took me 51 years to get her off the ground, I have since written some of my best songs ever in 15 to 20 minutes. The words flow quickly from my mind to the keyboard when I’m writing from my heart or from vivid memories of personal experiences. Life is fun if you give it a whirl! I think my story is unique because it’s another one of those true life stories that proves to the naysayers “It’s never too late to follow your passion.”
It never ends
Passion never dies. It grows
Stay Hungry and Strong
If you like my music, be sure to use my contact form to send me your feedback or testimonial. Sign up for my mailing list below and I’ll notify you once each new song is posted online and to this website.