Sarah McQuaid: Tour Diary

Our host in Nashville, Kari Estrin (PR genius, manager extraordinaire, career consulting guru -- and a terrific cook), had invited us to brunch, so we set off from Chattanooga in a bit of a hurry, in consequence of which I managed to leave behind two tops I’d washed at Jil and Dan’s and hung up to dry in the hotel room. Grrr.

Kari restored my good humour by making a wonderful brunch -- an artichoke heart and feta cheese omelette, hash brown potatoes, sausages and cornbread. It was all wonderful, and lovely to be in Kari’s beautiful restful house full of soothing colours and pretty things. Like me, she likes to combine purples with greens, and we turn out to possess identical tartan throws in shades of dark green and purple.

I got changed for my afternoon gig, and Kari insisted on polishing my boots -- here’s the photo to prove it, taken seconds before I stepped back to get a better angle and knocked over one of Kari’s beautiful ceramic bowls, shattering it beyond any hope of repair. Oh dear, oh dear.

I’d arranged to do a 3pm concert at a shop called The Goddess & The Moon, which had been suggested to me as a venue by Austin-based artist Bekah Kelso. The audience made up in quality what it lacked in quantity -- Kerrville New Folk award-winning songwriter Louise Mosrie, whom I’d met at the Folk Alliance conference in Memphis, was there, and so was my lifelong friend Christine -- our mothers were best friends from their college years until my mother’s death in 2004, so we saw a lot of each other as children and kept in touch as we grew up and moved on to different cities and countries. We also sang together in the Chicago Children’s Choir. I asked Christine if she remembered ‘Jubilate Deo’ by Praetorius. She asked how she could have forgotten it, and I asked if she’d like to sing it with me, and she said she would, and so we did.

It was a magical moment, and lovely as well to meet Christine’s husband Geoff and their two sons. Here’s a photo of myself and Christine, and also one of me with Louise and Kari.

We drove to a touristy part of Nashville where Martin bought presents for his family, then went in search of a quiet neighbourhood restaurant that was open on a Sunday. Alas, all the places Kari knew were closed, but we finally found somewhere nice, if noisy, to eat, and then I had to go and sit in the car to do my vocal warmups.

The Bluebird was buzzing when we got there; Angel Snow was doing an early show with a band that included Viktor Krauss among others. Fred and Louise Krauss (parents of Alison and Viktor) were just leaving as we arrived; Kari introduced us and we all shook hands, then stood around making small talk while we waited for the doors to open for the Writers’ Night. Christine and Geoff waved from the long queue forming down the side of the building, and pointed to my poster in the window. Another of my posters was on the wall inside, which chuffed me so much that I had to take photographs of both of them, as well as of some of the more famous faces that adorn the Bluebird’s walls.

Inside, whom should I run into at the bar but my old pal Mark Simos, who’s now Assistant Professor of Songwriting at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. I never did find out what he was doing in Nashville (although I imagine I’d be safe enough to hazard a guess that songwriting was involved), but it was great to see him, and we’ve made plans to hook up when I’m back in Boston in October. Here’s a photo of the two of us!

Martin, Kari, Christine and Geoff got a table and ordered drinks, while I and the other songwriters who were scheduled to perform that evening sat huddled in a couple of church pews in front of the mixing desk, clutching our guitars and awaiting our turn to do our stuff. It felt like an eternity before I eventually got to jump up on stage and sing my allotted three songs. I got a great reaction from the crowd and sold a few CDs afterwards. It was wonderful to be there, and I’d love to play the Bluebird again ... but I do hope that the next time I’ll be able to sing more than three songs!

The best bit of the evening for me was when the night’s feature writer, Walt Aldritch, got up to do his half-hour spot at the end of the show. As a performer who also happens to write songs, I’ve always felt a bit conflicted; it seems somehow wrong for me to be writing new songs when there are so many great songs already out there that I could be interpreting. But a couple of things Walt said during his set really turned around my thinking about that.

“Songwriting is an honourable pastime and profession,” he told the audience. “There are people who are really grateful for songs. And so all of you out there who are writing songs, I commend you .... What makes art art is that five of us look at the same subject and regurgitate it differently. And that’s cool.” Simple words, but they really spoke to me and made me feel better about what I do. You can look up Walt on the Web at www.waltaldritch.com.

Back at Kari’s house afterwards, we horsed into a gorgeous lemon buttermilk pie that Kari had made that afternoon. It was truly delicious and we all enjoyed it, as you can see from the photographs.

The final order of business for the evening was to do some transferring of photo and video files between Kari’s computer and mine; here’s a pic of Martin doing some heavy duty late-night laptop wrangling as Kari looks on (note the platinum Alison Krauss LP on the wall in the background!).