Concert Review: Tom Hambridge, Kate Taylor, George Teren, Jonathan Singleton at The Bluebird Café, July 21, 2012
12 years ago Liv Carter 3
If you ever want music in its purest form, Nashville’s Bluebird Café is the place to go. In light of its importance in Music City history, it is probably the most unassuming venue ever, sitting as it does in a strip mall in Green Hills. All that changes when the performers step into the friendly arena created by the “in the round” set-up. As soon as the first tendrils of music stretch out to the appreciative audience, the place, as if by magic, seems to be transported to an alternate reality. You forget you’re by a main road in a busy part of a city; everyday life goes away and you are only aware of the songs.
It was no different last Saturday night for Tom Hambridge‘s writers round. He brought with him folk singer-songwriter Kate Taylor and country hit songwriters George Teren and Jonathan Singleton. Hambridge and Taylor were both masterfully accompanied by Nashville guitarist Steve Cirkvencic.
It may have been at the Bluebird, where silence is encouraged, but when Tom Hambridge breaks out his drum, you are not expected to sit quietly for long. The Grammy-winning writer kicked off the evening with his Gretchen Wilson cut ‘I Got Your Country Right Here,’ and immediately enlisted the audience as his backup singers. He also included some nostalgia with ‘Shoebox,’ and his “happy blues song” about the benefits of singledom, ‘The Upside of Lonely.’ The beautiful Keith Anderson hit, ‘Everytime I Hear Your Name,’ which he penned with Anderson and Jeffrey Steele, got a well-deserved big response, and he closed out the night with the emotional armed forces tribute, ‘Nineteen.’
Kate Taylor’s folk songs are well-crafted, little essays on the human condition, more often than not peppered with a smart sense of humor. Some are insightful commentaries, others delicate personal philosophies. She started out by honoring folk icon Woody Guthrie, which went over well with the audience of music connoisseurs. The song was written to commemorate his 100th birthday recently, and contains the spot-on lyrics: ‘If you can measure a man by the truth he tells/…/this man was giant/you can feel his reach in his songs, we the people, sing.’ Amid telling moving stories of life, love and loss, Kate brought on a few blinked-away tears with a beautiful song about her late-husband, Charlie, then got the crowd laughing with ‘Soap Opera Life,’ and closed with the stunningly gorgeous ‘Circle of Light.’
A master of well-crafted yet lighthearted country songs, George Teren entertained with ‘Ladies Love Country Boys,’ and the (for some perhaps unfortunately) relatable ‘Family Reunion.’ He flipped the emotional switch the other way with ‘That’s What Scares Me’ and ‘Stealing Cinderella.’ He also threw in new summer tune ‘The Buffett Way,’ for which he invited co-songwriter Jamie Rounds to join him. The measure of a truly great song is that no matter who sings it, it works. Whether it’s co-writer Rivers Rutherford, Tim McGraw who made it a smash hit, or Teren himself, ‘Real Good Man’ always brings the house down!
Jonathan Singleton, with his parents attending one of his Bluebird appearances for the first time, could fill an entire evening with big hits but he took the opportunity to try out some newer songs. I think it’s safe to say that whether it’s an adorable love song about a “southern drawl” or he’s agonizing over “diamond rings and old barstools,” there are many more chart toppers in his future. And check out the calibre of hits which made it into this round: Billy Currington‘s ‘Don’t,’ Josh Turner‘s ‘Why Don’t We Just Dance,’ David Nail‘s ‘Red Light,’ and the song that propelled him into the Music Row A-list, Gary Allan‘s ‘Watching Airplanes.’
Visiting the Bluebird Café as often as I can – which I wish could be pretty much every other night – I have yet to witness a performance there which is less than deeply impressive.
I highly recommend visiting www.bluebirdcafe.com, and planning a stop there as soon as you can.
Liv Carter
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.
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