Well today was my first full day in Nashville, and what a day it ended up being! I planned on getting up for breakfast, but I slept through both of my alarms. Guess those highly-marketed Hampton beds really are comfortable!
When I eventually made it outside, I chose to go over to a cafe called Lucy’s Country Cafe for lunch. I heard about this place either on Headline Country or in Country Weekly. The reason I chose to go to it is because it’s owned by Bobby Pinson and his wife Lucy. Bobby is a hit songwriter, so, naturally, I wanted to go there to see if I could meet him. Neither he or Lucy were around, but I found out a good time to find him there, and plan on going back next week for that. The food was good. Southern dishes, with generous servings. The service was great too, very nice. By the time I left, I was stuffed. So much so actually that I went back to my hotel room to rest.
At about 5:30 I left my hotel for my first business-related activity of the trip (aside from trying to meet Bobby Pinson), which was going to an NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) weekly workshop. This workshop was part two of a workshop featuring a man named Ralph Murphy, who has a long and impressive resume in the industry. In part one he heard people play songs, then gave them recommendations for changes to make them more listener-friendly (which was the main lesson of the workshop). This week the people came back and played their songs again for him with the changes. I was obviously not present for last week’s meeting, so I just sat and observed this week’s meeting and only heard the songs with the changes in place. The meeting was very helpful for me though. Mr. Murphy talked a bit and gave a ten-lesson checklist for making sure songs are listener-friendly. This was very informative. I got to meet Mr. Murphy afterward, and also met some of the NSAI staff before the meeting, which was nice. I’ll be back there later in the trip.
Then came what would end up being the most interesting part of the day, and the trip so far. I went into downtown to go to some bars and try to have some fun. There was a thunderstorm going on at the time, which was interesting. Little bit of rain and some lightning. I probably went into eight or so bars, and had a drink in five of them. Three of my drinks got paid for by someone else, which was nice. I met a girl from Alabama who is friends with one of the bands I saw named the Chris Schrader Band (I also met Chris) and works at Tootsie’s, where I know another girl that works there. But the highlight of the night, and the trip so far, was when I happened to go to Tootsie’s later that night. I saw from outside that the guy performing was doing so from on top of the bar. I thought this was interesting, so I decided to go inside. I took a seat on the edge of the stage next to a couple pretty girls, and not long after, he took notice of me and my cowboy hat (he was also wearing one), and eventually invited me on stage to sing with him! The first song he played I had no idea what it was, so I couldn’t sing anything. But then I got them to play another one that I knew, which ended up being “Friends In Low Places”. That was fun, but it got even better. Upon tipping the band generously (for all the attention and obvious cool stuff they did for me), I was asked if I had any requests. I said I wanted some Jason Aldean and that I wanted to sing it with him. They were evidently ok with this, cause not long after I was called back up on stage to sing “Dirt Road Anthem”. The night finished with the artist (whose name is Scott Collier) inviting his friend onstage to sing a couple songs. His friend is hit songwriter Jon Stone. After singing his current number one hit “A Woman Like You” I got invited to sing one of his other number one hits with him “Me and My Gang”. I then met Jon when the bar was closing, and ended up joining him and a couple girls from Memphis across the street at Paradise Trailer Park for some food. What a night!
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