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Legendary country singer-songwriter Steve Earle unveils the secrets of composing a great song. Every year he runs a four-day intensive training session in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Journalist and aspiring songwriter Hugh Levinson joined around 100 other would-be balladeers to see what they can learn from Steve and his fellow teacher, Shawn Colvin.

Everyone comes for a different reason. Ange Leech travelled all the way from Kalgoorlie in Australia, saying "I want to learn how to really tell a story simply but effectively - pass on a message or ideas through words". Karen Dahlstrom from Brooklyn came looking for "hints, tricks, magic… Steve sets the bar really high and I want to approximate something close to what he does". Steve tells Hugh that he "can't make anyone a song writer who wasn't a song writer before they got here - but they will be better song writers when they leave". And he rebuts the theory that you have to live a life like his – which includes a serious heroin addiction, a spell in prison and eight marriages – to become a great songwriter.

Find out if Hugh managed to write a song good enough to perform at one of the camp’s nightly open mic shows. And listen in for stories of dreaming, methadone, guns, jail, death and betrayal.

(Photo: Steve Earle)