On Thursday night we had our first songwriters show at Marcy Jo's Muletown in a long while... since June of last year I think. And it was wonderful.
I didn't realize how much I'd missed it. Missed the music and the magic of what happens when you set up a few microphones in front of songwriters on barstools and turn the PA on. And the feeling in the air as eighty people or so listened and watched the writers share their songs and many of the stories behind them, one by one.
We call it "Muletown In The Round" because first off, it's in Muletown (the city of Columbia's nickname) and in the 'Muletown' location of our family diner Marcy Jo's. The "in the round" part is the style of the event. It's patterned after the iconic Bluebird Cafe shows in Nashville that I was fortunate to be part of all through the '90s and '00s and still do from time to time... only now here, in our little town and community.
Thursday's show was hosted by hit songwriter Wynn Varble, who also lives here in Muletown. He has written lots of songs that you've heard on the radio. Some of my favorites are "Waiting On A Woman" and "She Ain't In It" and of course, I love "Little More Country Than That" because we wrote that one together.
He brought Clint Daniels, another great hit writer and singer who recently relocated from Nashville to Columbia who's written a number of songs you'd know too.
And Jenna LaMaster, a wonderful new female artist who writes and sings about cowboys and rodeos and lots of other things you don't hear too many girls singing about in country music anymore, so that was pretty special.
We did a lot of these songwriter shows in the spring of last year. Most of them were hosted by my good friend Paul Overstreet, another legendary songwriter and singer, who invited quite a few of his friends and co-writers to share the spotlight with him.
We even turned a good number of those shows into a weekly "Muletown In The Round" TV series that ran on television all summer and fall. But when COVID-19 came along, the shows and the filming of them stopped. This is just a taste of one of them...
Besides me, I think everyone had an amazing time on Thursday night. And we're all looking forward to the next one which is gonna be on March 4th. Once again, Wynn is going to host the show and he'll bring two more great songwriters out with him. I think tickets are on sale now HERE and I'm sure my sister Candy and the restaurant will share updated info soon on the @MarcyJosMuletown and @MuletownInTheRound Facebook pages.
I just announced more barn concert dates of my own, and I'll be playing that Friday and Saturday night on March 5th and 6th at Homestead Hall, so it will be neat to have a full weekend of music again.
PS: if you want to watch some neat "behind the scenes" interviews with a lot of the songwriters we've had on Muletown this past year... Aaron David Thomas and Heather Huston from our team at Red King put together a great series of video interviews that you can also watch on Youtube here.
