Putting the Music in Music City

We moved to Music City for many reasons, but the opportunity to attend concerts and musical events featuring some of the best singers, musicians and songwriters in the world has only enhanced our incredible nine months down here. Over the past few weeks, we attended two incredible shows that any country music fan would want to be a part of.

The first show was a Carriage House Music Series show at historic Belle Meade Plantation (a former thoroughbred nursery famous for breeding and training championship race horses ... recent Kentucky derby winners like Funny Cide and Barbarro, even racing legends like Secretariat and Seabiscuit can trace their bloodlines back to the breeding stock at Belle Meade). The two-hour session showcased hit songwriters Rivers Rutherford, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Brett James and Tim Nichols (R to L, above photo). The show, which was taped for future airing on XM Satellite Radio’s Music City Connection: Heroes Behind the Hits, was truly awesome. It’s impressive to hear a hit song on the radio recorded by a major country artist, but in our opinion, it’s even more impressive to listen to that song performed live by the actual songwriter immediately after hearing the story behind the song from the writer who penned it!

The second show was also taped by XM for the Music City Connection: Heroes Behind the Hits series and featured Nashville’s “Piano Man,” Phil Vassar, along with Tim Ryan and Tom Douglas. The event, held at the Musicians Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville, was another impressive blend of musical talent and songwriting creativity. We had never seen Vasser and he didn’t disappoint. Wow, can that guy play the piano like very few people can! Thanks to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau for putting on an incredible show!