SAMEE CANNON

UPstar. Music Showcase

Monday August 28, 2023

@ The Rusty Nail in Hermitage, TN

(Review By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

Downtown Nashville is a buzz of neon lights, rowdy tourists, and worn-out cover songs pouring out the windows of the hundreds of bars that line Lower Broadway. While it’s certainly a hotspot destination for the thousands upon thousands of visitors to Nashville, downtown is mostly a place that the locals try to avoid.

So where then do they gather to kick off their week in an atmosphere that skirts all that noise but brings some of the strongest, best of the best original talent to the stage?

Located just a ten-mile jaunt East of downtown sits The Rusty Nail in Hermitage, TN.

Their spacious outdoor patio, complete with its beachside flavoring, offers a vibe that whisks you away to a feel-good mindset as rousing games of cornhole and beach volleyball combine with hearty laughter shared amongst friends and neighbors.

Adjacent to this exuberant outdoor atmosphere, UPstar. Music gathers the country music industry and the best of the best up-and-coming songwriters inside the Rusty Nail in its classic neighborhood setting, bringing everyone together as family to soak in the talent, the music, and the aura of generation next.

Their Monday night showcases this summer have already included such names as Parker Graye, Reid Haughton, Shaylen, Belles, Alee, Maddie Lenhart, The Dryes, and on this night (among others) TCM Class of 2023 artist Samee Cannon.

“I’m gonna play this first one for my mom who is in town visiting from South Carolina,” Cannon shared as she popped into the laid back, breezy groove of “Caroline,” singing through vivid snapshots that painted the many reasons she loves her home state of South Carolina, running her incredible vocals to a gritty edge in the chorus to emphasize the strike of particular lines while expertly pulling them back into their smoothest flavoring at all the right moments to intrigue the audience as they quieted to a listening room type hush, getting drawn in one note at a time.

Dedicating “Cowboys Cry” to all the Beth Dutton’s in the room, Samee drove into a moody Wild West aura within the rhythm of the song as she blanketed the crowd in an addictive, waltz infused melody, expertly utilizing slight tilts within her voice to perfectly hold the darker toned vibes embedded into the lyric.

Closing out the opening round of the night with her current single “Salt & Sugar,” Cannon slid into the irresistibly catchy, modern country melody as she bopped through a listing of the down-home, Southern kissed life lessons that she still carries within her today that her mama taught her; enticing the nostalgic vibe out of the crowd as they resonated their own childhood learnings while she sang to not mix flowers with weeds, that every player has a game, and that, as she sings in the hook, salt & sugar look the same!

FULL SET LIST
1) Caroline
2) Cowboys Cry
3) Salt & Sugar

• Prev
• Next