On Friday, I went to the Bluebird Cafe for a round featuring Barbara Cloyd (running a songwriter workshop that week), Don Poythress, Marcel, Trevor Rosen and someone I've been a fan of for awhile, Jessica Andrews. Barbara is legendary in this town for her mentoring of songwriters, and Marcel was no exception. He told the story of driving all the way from California for an open mike spot at the Bluebird...he managed to grab the last one and in the process blew Barbara away enough for her to get him connected in Nashville. The rest was history, with Marcel getting a record deal (you may remember his song "Tennessee" which he did Friday evening) and pairing up professionally and personally with Jessica Andrews. He was a writer of Jessica's hit "There's More to Me Than You" (he sang it Friday night with Jessica on backup vocals) and I didn't know he also wrote "Nothing To Lose" for Josh Gracin. It was a treat to hear Jessica sing the touching and inspiring "Who I Am".
Don Poythress showed us some of his great songs, including one that Kellie Pickler recorded "Things That Never Cross A Man's Mind". Trevor Rosen was there primarily as guitarist for Jessica and Marcel, but did get a song of his own in the round.
On Saturday, another treat for me: I went to the grand reopening of the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum shop. The main reason for me to go was to meet one of my radio heroes, WSM's Bill Cody. I'm not a fan of chatty morning radio shows unless you've got something interesting and entertaining to say. Bill Cody and Charlie Mattos and traffic reporter Richard Thomas make my commute much easier to bear each morning. What you hear and what you see (on GAC) is what you get with Bill--just as nice and as charming as he is on the air. Afterward, he found me in the corner of the gift shop with my head stuck in Loretta Lynn's latest book to make sure I got my museum gift pack--that was sweet (thanks, Bill!). Later I also got to see Eddie Stubbs, who I've met on a few occasions. He was, as always, the perfect Southern gentleman. I also took in a brief bit of a songwriter session with Rich Fagan, notable for writing songs on the George Strait "Pure Country" soundtrack and John Michael Montgomery's girl at the auction hit "Sold" (I actually heard that one at least twice on the radio this past week.), and a performance by bluegrass/country group Nash Street, winners of the Colgate Country Showdown.
I've lived in Nashville one year next month and I'll be talking about that milestone in later posts. But even though I'm pretty settled in a normal routine of life, still there's something about being in downtown Nashville. As a visitor, the sense of history and musical richness was very special and now that I live here I haven't become jaded about it. Like I said...I love this town.
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