I love that I live in a city where we have initiatives like Nashville Sunday Night and Musician’s Corner and the marriage of these two entities is a holy union indeed. Lightning 100’s weekly live radio broadcast helped me to feel like a part of the music scene back when I wasn’t even old enough to be allowed out on a school night. I recall many a Sunday night spent sprawled out in my teenage bedroom, flipping through the pages of SPIN, trying to hang on to the last little bit of the weekend while listening to acts like Kami Lyle and Garrison Starr. The live audience: the shuffling of their chairs, their intermittent cheering and clapping, the clinking of their drinks, made the listening experience so much richer. I couldn’t be there in the flesh, but I could conjure the environment in my mind and imagine myself in this world where music was made and exchanged — and feel confident that when I was old enough to drive, I’d find my place in it.
I was starving for the live music experience, and lucky for penniless, pre-teen me, there was a free, downtown music series, Dancing In The District. Over the years, Dancin’ came and went, returned again, vacillated between free and ticketed, migrated from Riverfront Park to the Titans Stadium Parking Lot (it was Adelphia, then, I think) and ultimately met its demise. Thankfully, new, free concert series have emerged in its absence. Yes, there’s Live On The Green and it’s awesome. But there’s something synergistically superior for me about Musician’s Corner and their situation in Centennial Park. Maybe it’s the addition of the beer garden? While that’s awesome and kudos to them for incorporating that amenity, the real draw lies in the solid line-up of local talent. And for me, it’s all about supporting an earnest mission to match good music with the good people of our community, demolishing economic barriers along the way by making it affordable for all.
Keep free live music alive by supporting their efforts here.
Catch the CD release party for Musicians Corner featuring artists from their season either in person, on your radio, or online at Lightning 100’s website. Tickets to the show available here. The city that listens, indeed.
And without further ado, a little Q&A with a favorite of mine from this Sunday’s bill. Justin Maurer of the Colorfeels:
No Country: Would you mind answering a couple questions for us?
JM: No. We don’t mind. Excited, in fact.
No Country: What makes Colorfeels unique on the Nashville landscape?
JM: Instrumentation. We are a sextet of multi-instrumentalists, so we tend to err on the side of variety, which makes our live show very dynamic and [the opposite of boring].
No Country: What was your experience like playing Musicians Corner?
JM: As I recall, it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.
No Country: What is coming up for Colorfeels that you want to be sure people know about and can check out?
JM: We just got home from our first big tour. We plan to spend the next few months rehearsing and writing new material and perfecting our chili recipe. Everything that a fan could need is right here.
No Country: What other local acts are you really digging right now?
JM: Andrew Combs has a brand new record that is pretty fantastic, as do our friends/tour buddies, Kopecky Family Band. The Electric Hearts, Evan P. Donohue, Reid Magette and the 1920s, and Steelism are some of our other current favorites.
Check out Colorfeels doing their thing at ACL Fest on the Fender Airstream:
