Nashville Songwriters: The people and stories behind some of your favorite country songs

By Grant Silver

On February 11th 2022, I had the opportunity to go see the 20th anniversary Nashville Songwriters show at DPAC. This was a special concert held by some of Nashville’s most prominent songwriters where all of the proceeds went to local organizations such as Kidznotes, a youth music program, The North Carolina Boys academy, and the Voyager Academy Friends of the Arts program. There were a total of 8 songwriters such as Tim Nichols, who wrote mega hits like “Head’s Carolina, Tail’s California” performed by Jo Dee Messina and the Grammy award winning “Live like you were Dying” performed by Tim Mcgraw. Also present were two special guest stars, up and coming star Lainey Wilson who wrote and performed current hits like “Things A Man Oughta Know” which is up for country song of the year at the CMA’s and “Never say Never”with Cole Swindell. The other guest was David Lee Murphy who wrote and performed the song “Everything is Gonna be Alright” which he wrote with one of the other songwriters present, Jimmy Yeary.

Now as someone who didn’t know country music that well prior to the show, I had an absolute blast. It was an almost 4 hour show and an all acoustic set which left room for lots of hilarious banter and interesting stories between the songs. It was also great just hearing these hits stripped down and  sung by the people who wrote them. Some of the highlights for me included Wynn Varble, Who was just absolutely hilarious on stage, singing some unreleased joke songs that he had never performed before. Jessi Alexander was also another highlight giving a stunning performance of a beautiful ballad she wrote for Blake Shelton called “Mine Would Be You”. However, My personal favorite song in the set was the rocking “What was I thinkin’” written by Deric Rutten which was the breakout hit for country superstar Dierks Bentley. 

Overall, this show was a fantastic experience and I would definitely recommend going next year since this is an annual event.