My Music City Debut
Well it looks like I’ll be returning to Winston after the Music City Bowl after all.
I made my Nashville debut last night, figuring for all the world that there would be some record or publishing executive on hand to sign me to an ironclad deal that would expressedly forbid me from leaving the city even to gather my family and belongings in North Carolina. Once they got me, I didn’t expect them to let me go. I’d even warned coach Jim Grobe he might be having to break in a new beat guy for spring football and next season. Such would surely be the price for playing in Music City USA.
So I arrived with high hopes to the Commodore Grille on West End, hard by the Vanderbilt campus, to be told that I could sign up for the Open Mic portion of the program. Only thing, the Open Mic didn’t open until the Writer’s Night ended. And that wasn’t supposed to be over until around 9:30.
No problem, I found a table, a long neck (or two) and a menu and sat and had dinner while watching one budding star after another get up on stage and just blow me away. The level of talent in this city is staggering, a cut or two above what you’re liable to hear at Garage on an assorted Wednesday night.
I was really taken by this character named Stan Webb, a veteran of the Nashville scene whose list of hits includes Tracy Byrd’s standard “I’m From the Country and I Like It That Way.’’ Here’s a viideo I found of Webb that was, in fact, recorded at the Commodore, maybe even last night. Stan Webb.Like me, he has a beard. Like me he wore a ball cap. Like me, he’s carrying a couple of extra pound around the midsection. And like me, he’s 59 years old. So I wasn’t totally surprised when I was mistaken for Webb in the Gentlemen’s Room between sets.
No, I said. I’m better looking but he writes better songs.
So finally I got my chance, not at 9:30 but an hour afterward. I was called to the stage with two other songwriters, including one, a commercial painter named Jeff Dezern who actually happened to be from Winston-Salem. The room had cleared considerably, but there were still a couple of dozen people on hand when I launched into my song about the removal of the Cherokee called Trail of Tears.
The ovation was pretty good, and I didn’t sense I’d embarrassed myself. But neither was I swamped by any talent scouts from nearby Music Row. Maybe if I’d had an cowbell to accompany me.
I wonder where a man might find one of those this weekend in this town.