Nashville online

Oct. 22, 2009

Dear Leslie,

The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian estimated the number of guitar players in Nashville at 1,352. "And anyone that unpacks his guitar could play twice as better than I will," he sang. Sebastian low-balled the right number by a considerable amount but captured the insecurity of striving to survive in a place awash in talent. In these parts most everybody knows a musician who made it, is trying to make it or doesn't hope to make it in Nashville anymore.

My friend Rick and I drove to Nashville last weekend for some golf and relaxation. The skyline is magical, especially at night. We stayed with Rick's friend Mark, who's in the Nashville music business. He's an agent who scouts for talent and tries to match singers with songs and songwriters with songwriters in the hope they click.

Songwriting is an industry in Nashville. Mark tells us some people who want to sell songs to George Strait have analyzed his albums down to knowing which vowels he prefers to sing. He compared Nashville to baseball's farm system, where talent is carefully groomed until it's ready for the big leagues.

My brother used to live and perform in Nashville. He told me Robert's is one of the places the top musicians play. The Don Kelley Band was downtown at Robert's last week. They did a Waylon Jennings song and might have played the Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man" better than the Allmans did.

Nashville musicians have to go on tour to make money because the competition for work in town is too strong. Sizzling bands pass the tip jar downtown, where Broadway is lined with music bars and tourist gift shops and a beer is $6. NashVegas, some call it. My brother's former girlfriend used to sing in a bar in the section called Printer's Alley. She'd sing a few songs and then walk around the audience hawking the CD she'd paid to have recorded.

In Nashville, many people make a living colorizing the dreams of those at the bottom. For some it's "The Day of the Locust" set to electric guitars and fiddles.

A singer named Joanna Smith and her band held forth on a tiny stage at nearby Tootsie's. All warm, blond Georgia charisma and real-deal pipes, she sang, "I'm a farm girl in a MySpace world. ... I got George Jones on my ringtone." Mark noticed music industry insiders at Tootsie's that night and figured the record companies must be interested in her. Maybe she's the next star, but when her set was over Smith walked around the crowded club holding out the band's tip jar.

Mark says some record companies were slow to figure out how MySpace and Facebook could help market their artists. Newer record companies knew how from the start. He told us about a company that does nothing but run the websites of the big artists and charges each one $25,000 a year.

Back home I looked at The Don Kelley Band's MySpace page. They've been playing around Nashville since 1981. Dazzling lead guitarist J.D. Simo's friends include Jimmie Vaughan, brother of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan and himself considered one of the world's finest rock and blues guitarists. Another friend is Hubert Sumlin, a blues guitar pioneer.

Joanna Smith doesn't have such vaunted friends yet, but she has 4,074 of them and her MySpace page percolates with concert videos, video of the band going to Whataburger, video of Smith trying to lock a U-Haul trailer, interviews and pictures. There's Smith, star struck listening to Patty Loveless do a sound check on a stage they'll both be on later on. She makes you want to root for her.

Two of her songs have been recorded by other artists, but she knows she was born to perform.

Even if there are 1,352 singers in Nashville. And even if a tiny part of her is afraid every one of them can sing twice as better.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.