This was a first for us! We had never heard of this festival .. we really aren’t festival type people and we certainly aren’t musical, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This is a 4 day songwriters festival. It is a very interesting profession. We learned all about how much each songwriter makes per song they write. The head lawyer for the industry spoke to us one morning before an event at Bud and Ally’s. He said if you pay for Spotify or any music download that’s the best way the songwriters get paid. If you do the free version they still make some but not much.

Each download is how its calculated.

We loved almost every musician we heard. The ones we heard the last night weren’t our favorites but we still had best time!

We started out on Friday night at a private John Prine concert with his son Tommy. It was incredible. There were no phones or videos allowed. There were probably around 200-250 people in this venue.

They told so many stories and then sang the songs they wrote about.

After that we walked down to the venue where Elizabeth Cook was singing. There were probably about 40 people there and she was really good. She told great stories and we really like the song about her heroin addict sister.

Saturday morning we went early to Bud And Ally’s. It was called Hair of the Dog. We loved Gretchen Peters ,Kim Ritchie , Jeff Black and Mary Gauthier. They told fabulous stories about the songs that they had written and the venue also served us coffee or lunch/brunch/ snacks while we were sitting there. There were about 100 people there at the most. I strongly suggest listening to Mercy Now by Mary Gauthier.

The War after the War and I drink are also awesome! We met most of them afterwards and I will post some pictures.

Saturday afternoon we went to the big venue and set up our chairs to hear John Prine! Tanya Tucker and the Indigio Girls went before him. They sang the songs you would expect ! Delta Dawn and Closer to,Fine. Tanya sang new song about Bring me Flowers now. She won a Grammy the next week. It was raining during John Prine and a lot of people left but we stuck it out. John Prines son Tommy and wife Fiona came out and sang the last song with

him.

Sunday morning was the highlight! We went all the way to Alys beach to the Gospel brunch. We missed the first seating (930)and stood in line an hour to get in the next seating(11). That outdoor venue held 350. We were on the second row and it was wonderful. Karyn Williams, Brian White, Mac Powell who all told stories and sang Christian songs. It was a very moving service that was outdoors and it was very chilly.

Saturday night we went to hear Livingston Taylor. He is James Taylor’s brother and is quite an entertainer. That venue held about 300.

Sunday afternoon we went back to the big venue and set up to hear Brian White of the Beach boys. Don McLean was before him. It was very chilly again and we enjoyed it. Brian White came out on a walker and I’m not sure if he sang or not but he sat at his white piano.

Sunday night we ate at Basmatis.

We went to some venues (Vue) that were near where we were staying. They were neat small venues but the singers we did not enjoy it as much as the musicians we had seen already.