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Some of Music Row’s biggest hit-writers of the past 30 years came out to 3rd & Lindsley Bar & Grill to celebrate the release of Nashville Songwriter: The Inside Stories Behind Country Music’s Greatest Hits, featuring those writers’ life stories and how they inspired the tens-of-dozens of hits between them that followed.
L-R seated: Jeff Silbar, Craig Wiseman, author Jake Brown with arm around Freddy Powers and Catherine Powers.
L-R standing: Neil Thrasher, Sonny Curtis, Bob DiPiero and Kelley Lovelace
Photographer credit: Kindell Moore
Hosting
a who’s-who of country music’s biggest hitmakers, including CRAIG
WISEMAN, BOB DIPIERO, KELLEY LOVELACE, SCOTTY EMERICK, SONNY CURTIS,
JEFF SILBAR, NEIL THRASHER, and FREDDY POWERS (all featured together in
the photo above), following a private meet-and-greet among the
songwriters and media, fans were treated to a live event featuring
performances of songs from each writer’s catalog of hits. The legendary
Sonny Curtis kicked things off with a 4-song set that included arguably
his most famous hit, “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won).” Jeff Silbar then performed “Wind Beneath My Wings” among other crowd-pleasing hits.
The
third act of the night’s live show was a moving tribute to longtime
Merle Haggard co-writer Freddy Powers, who made it out to be part of the
night in spite of his battling the advance stages of Parkinson’s
Disease. Introduced by his longtime manager/wife Catherine Powers,
Freddy’s catalog was saluted by a 3-song tribute from hit songwriter
Scotty Emerick, best known for Toby Keith # 1s including “I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight,” “Beer For My Horses,” “I Love This Bar,” and “As Good As I Once Was,” kicking off with the Powers-and-Haggard-penned George Jones # 1 hit “I Always Get Lucky With You,” before diving into a deeper Haggard-Powers co-write “Jimmy the Broom,” and closing with another Haggard # 1, “Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star.”
Powers’ protégé, rising country star Mary Sarah–who
Rolling Stone Country called “a prodigy” and currently has a duets
album out featuring Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Merle
Haggard, etc –shined with her stirring rendition of “I Just Want to Sing My Song,” before hit writer Neil Thrasher closed out the live event with his performances of the Rascal Flatts’ monster # 1 hit, “Fast Cars and Freedom” and Kenny Chesney’s “There Goes My Life.”
Nashville Songwriter: The Inside
Stories Behind Country Music’s Greatest Hits, the 36th book from music
biographer Jake Brown, is available on store shelves nationwide and at
all online retailers from BenBella Books.
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