Celebrating Texas in Nashville
I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the Texas Lone Star flag flying high inside the BMI building on Nashville’s Music Row on Wednesday evening (Dec. 12). In front of it sat four great Texas songwriters: Bill Carter, Monte Warden, Bruce Robison and fellow CMT.com blogger Sunny Sweeney. BMI hosted a Texas evening, tipping the hit to some fine writers and a fine state that has produced some of America’s finest artists
Bill Carter began with his undeniably catchy “Why Get Up” — a hit for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. It’s easy to see why this was such a hit — it got everyone’s toes tapping from the very start! Bill delivered some great bluesy songs, and dressed in his trilby, he cuts a very stylish figure. Very cool!
Known to some Texans as the lead singer for the “best rockabilly band that ever was” (the Wagoneers), Monte Warden has since established himself as a songwriter with hits and credibility. He co-wrote George Strait’s last No. 1 — “Desperately” and has had other cuts by Kelly Willis and Patty Loveless. He has also made some fine records of his own that would appeal to fans of the Everly Brothers and Chris Isaak.
Literally standing head and shoulders above everyone else was Bruce Robison — the long, tall Texan himself! Apart from enjoying No. 1 hits with George Strait, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Bruce claims to be the writer of the fastest descending No. 1 in the history of the Billboard charts — “Travelin’ Soldier” by the Dixie Chicks. Bruce can silence any room with his poetic accounts of everyday encounters, and he showed why many consider him their favorite young writer today.
Sunny Sweeney followed this in a way that only she could — with charm, sassiness and down-home honesty. Her songs were a big surprise to many folks, and she more than held her own on that stage, and, trust me, that’s not easy. Texas once more showed it has an amazing stable of writers — Nashville is clever enough to recognize that.
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Rick says:
Its nice to see Sunny Sweeney and Monte Warden get included along with two far better known Texas singer/songwriters. I’ve been a fan on Monte’s music since I first saw him on the old Nashville Network way back in the early 90’s with his updated Buddy Holly type style. I’ve been a big fan of Sunny’s since purchasing her debut CD earlier this year, and I count “Heartbreakers Hall of Fame” as one of my Top 10 favorite country albums of 2007 along with Elizabeth Cook’s “Balls” and some other worthy contenders. As newcomer Sarah Johns said in a recent interview: “the countrier the better”!
Having the music of these artists lauded in Nashville by BMI is nice in a symbolic sense, but it doesn’t change the fact that mainstream Top 40 country radio avoids these artists like the plague. The tastemakers that program Top 40 country stations don’t want anything too real, too twangy, too country that might upset the shallow musical sensibilities of their targeted demographic audience that thrives on the pop-rock stuff that passes for mainstream country music these days.
Fortunately the good people of Texas still love a broad variety of country music including taditional and honky tonk country and western swing music. Its that nurturing environment that allows these types of artists to develop as songwriting craftsmen (and women) that create top quality country msuic spanning all legitimate country genres. Whether its Monte, Sunny, Elana James, Amber Digby, Trish Murphy, or even Sunny’s best friend Brennen Leigh, these artists thrive in Texas at the club level but often get few bookings outside the Lone Star State. Its nice for Nashville to honor these talents as long as the Nashvegas influence doesn’t try to go down to Austin to muck things up with crass commercialism that tosses musical integrity aside in pursuit of the almighty dollar…….
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[...] McLoughlin has a brief rundown of the BMI hosted event for four Texas songwriters that included Bill Carter, Monte Warden, Bruce Robison, and Sunny [...]