Monday June 1st. - 12th. & Porter

Cirque du Chanson, a circus of song.
Only in Nashville......
Kim McLean and Devon O'Day dreamed this night of 12 performers, whom most met for the first time the day of the gig, learning nearly 40 songs for a writer's night jacked up!The plan was to turn this writer's night into an all out jam-style performance, with everyone lending their talents on songs where they felt it. To make things more fun, names were drawn out of a jar to randomize the order of performers and everyone stayed on stage at the same time were beautifully "winging it".

We all met Kim McLean's classroom at Trevecca around 11am. on Monday morning and traded of songs with one another and a backing band, for early 3 hours. It took that long to rehearse almost 40 songs. Load in to 12th. & Porter was a 6pm. You have to give the sound guys credit for not freaking out too bad, as a dozen different songwriters an players can be a bit of a trick. Sound check last almost an hour, but ultimately things sounded good!

We had about 40 people in the venue (not bad for a Monday night in Nashville)! The show went off without a hitch and everyone was really great, diverse and passionate about their art - another edge over most writer's nights. Aside from myself, Kim McLean and Devon O'Day, we had Robin English, Leilah, Mark Sloan, Beth Fox and Marysue Englund. Marysue's husband Dave covered lead electric duties in the band, along with Chris Herin on Bass and Rick Malkin on drums and percussion.

I loved the challenge of playing that much music without much rehearsal. I grew up learning how to play around a kitchen table with other musicians. For me, this just was just a big ole kitchen table.