Tin Pan South 2012: Lawrence Music Group with Tracy Lawrence, Lacey Brown, Rick Huckaby, Jonny Houlihan & Flip Anderson

12 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Tin Pan South 2012: Lawrence Music Group with Tracy Lawrence, Lacey Brown, Rick Huckaby, Jonny Houlihan & Flip Anderson

The annual NSAI Tin Pan South songwriters festival is one of my very favorite weeks of the year, and shows such as this is why. Lawrence Music Group unleashed its writers at The Station Inn on Wednesday, March 28, 2012.

Tracy Lawrence kicked things off with his current single, ‘Pills,’ before proceeding to wholeheartedly thank everyone there for supporting Tin Pan South, NSAI, and songwriters in general. “It’s great to have a week where the spotlight is turned on songwriters,” he said. “They are the backbone of everything we do but they don’t always get the recognition.” I could not agree more! Tracy performed two of his hits,‘If the World Had a Front Porch’ and ‘Paint Me a Birmingham,’ as well as the painfully beautiful ‘Heaven for a While.’ The ability to delve into such difficult emotions and use them to craft a song is why songwriters are such a priceless commodity! The set also included a demonstration of why I love this bunch. What sounds like quite an eventful roadtrip to play in Crossville, TN inspired a song which provided a hilarious description of the audience and the venue, endearingly, and not-at-all-sarcastically, referred to as ‘Cecil’s Palace’!

Lacey Brown and Jonny Houlihan are two names to remember. Spanning the whole range between Americana and radio-friendly country music, these two singer-songwriters are about to build impressive careers. Lacey’s unique voice had an impact on a friend who had come to this show with me, and she couldn’t even wait til the end of the song to lean over and go ‘This girl is fantastic!’ Yes, indeed. Among her songs were tracks from her 2011 EP, including ‘Boy’ and title track ‘Let it Go.’ Jonny did what only songwriters seem to accomplish: make me laugh one minute with the hangover advice in ‘Getting Old’ and just about cry the next during the stunning ‘Never Too Far Gone.’

Longtime Lawrence-collaborators Rick Huckaby and Flip Anderson completed the team. While he contributes fantastic harmonies for everyone, I wish Flip could be persuaded to take lead on more songs, especially if he does as great a job with them as the bluesy tune he opened with. Rick is a songwriter I don’t even want to pretend to be objective about anymore – I just love him. His new acoustic album is the 2012 release I am most looking forward to and he started off with the title track, ‘Pistols and Diamonds.’ His song choices included ‘Saving Savannah,’ during which the 5-part harmony nearly floored us (I added video below, it’s the first clip. Go be impressed.), and the blues song ‘Last One to Leave’ (Think about how much you love your favorite song ever, multiply that feeling by a factor of 10 and you start to approach how much I adore this song!). He ended with ‘She Gets Me High,’ a song which played a part in one of my friends deciding to buy a house in East Tennessee. No joke. The power of great use of imagery in songwriting!

These writers are all at various stages of completing new projects. Be sure you will hear all about them here when each one is released!

Tracy Lawrence is also ready to hit the road again so please visit tracylawrence.com to find out the tour dates and ticketing details.

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter