PAIGE KING JOHNSON

Music Row Freakshow

Wednesday August 2, 2023

@ The Local in Nashville, TN

(Review By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

“We’re just a family of crazy songwriters playing the greatest show you’ve never heard,” reads the tagline atop the social media pages of the Music Row Freakshow, and while songwriter rounds are prevalent in Music City, this one has established itself as one of the best and most reliable.

With lineups this past month that have already included amazing performances from Josiah Siska, Gloria Anderson, Bridgette Tatum, Ellis Griffin, and many more, the “freakshow” is a twice-weekly part to elevating the moniker of the West End hotspot, The Local, by engaging a packed house of music lovers to embody the spirit and “come a stranger…leave a local!”

Though she has tour dates lined up in every corner of her home state of North Carolina for the remainder of 2023, Paige King Johnson was in Nashville this past week and sat in on the Wednesday night round, holding the crowd with her stellar authenticity, remarkable confidence, and brush of 90’s country influence flowing through her extremely gifted vocal.

Since dropping her debut album in June of 2022, Honky Tonk Heart, Paige has carved out a niche on her country music path, laying foundations one song at a time with “Baby Don’t,” “Homes in the Hometowns,” “American Beauty,” “Famous Enough,” and “Why God Made Small Towns.”

Flanked during the opening round by 13-year-old protégé Brooklyn Summers and the incredibly talented Rob Mayes, who delivered a set that included his recent single “Natural Anthem” and the stunning “The Prayer I’ve Never Prayed,” Johnson gave the crowd three new offerings to savor as she pointed her arrow at her next chapter of music.

Opening with “Raining Cowboys,” she instantly shined her insatiably 90’s country flare over the very receptive crowd as her effortlessly, powerful vocal wrapped around a toe-tapping melody, infusing the honky-tonk mid-tempo with a flirtatious lyric that spoke straight at the lusting lure that the Amarillo cowboys have on her.

Softening the pace into the autobiographical “Paying My Dues,” Johnson then shifted into a simple folk styled guitar pluck to add a new sonic element to her repertoire as she intriguingly pulled from country music’s traditional ideals, trailing a lyric through the chase of the music dream while telling the full story from humble beginnings to pounding the pavement and finding ultimate success.

She masterfully slid into a bop along tempo with her final song of the round, aptly keeping the crowd invested in her set as they shoulder danced in rhythm with “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” a song in which she introduced through a tongue and cheek tone as being about how much a chore it is to love her husband, as she proceeded to open her family photo album while playfully driving through the everyday scenarios that make her swoon and fall more for him such as “having” to be the center of his whole world, being the one by his side all night long, etc.  

FULL SET LIST
1) Raining Cowboys
2) Paying My Dues
3) Somebody's Gotta Do It

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